


Future days

by burninglights



Category: The Last of Us (Video Games)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Comfort, F/F, Fluff and Angst, Post-Canon, Post-Canon Fix-It, Slow Burn, apocalypse girlfriends, ellie finds her way back to dina, ellie is a mess but she's trying, soft!Dina, soft!Ellie, the last of us post-ending
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-13
Updated: 2020-12-28
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:07:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 20,995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26992636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/burninglights/pseuds/burninglights
Summary: Many months pass since Ellie's return, and as she slowly pieces herself back together, she finds her way back to Dina.// Post-canon //Dina draws back slightly, eyes lingering on Ellie’s for a long time before answering, “Okay. We’ll see.” And that's more than enough for Ellie - more than she’d hoped to get, more than she knows she deserves. She still doesn’t believe in second chances, but she believes in luck and fate and on good days, she believes that the future doesn't necessarily have to be anything like the past.
Relationships: Dina/Ellie (The Last of Us), Dina/Jesse (The Last of Us) - Past
Comments: 28
Kudos: 112





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wrote this in one sitting because the ending of TLOU2 /broke/ me and I just, couldn't deal. Pardon the mistakes/typos if any, I was in a /mood/.

_\- Future Days  
(Pearl Jam) _

_I_ _._

 _If I ever were to lose you  
_ _I'd surely lose myself  
_ _Everything I have found dear_

Ellie finds herself back in the church, where it had all - strictly speaking - begun. She pushes the door open and steps in. She breathes in the familiar smell of slightly musty wood and feels almost light-headed. Taking a shuddering breath, she takes a few more steps into the empty hall, heartbeat racing. It was exactly the way she’d left it, so many months ago now, and she’s not sure if that makes her feel angry or sad or just a little bit comforted; For her, everything had changed in those months - and yet - so much of the world had stayed exactly the same, without her. 

It was almost as though time had stood still, waiting for her to return. It seemed that if she stayed here long enough, Joel or Jesse or _fuck,_ Dina would show up, and they could all do it over again, only this time - they’d do it better. 

But if she’s honest, though, the thought terrifies her. She didn’t believe in second chances - Joel had given one to her, the day he’d refused to let her die in that hospital, and she hadn’t wanted it. She told him then that she should’ve died, and she’d meant it. She doesn’t want a second chance now, either. 

She knows too much about herself now - knows what she’s capable of, and worse still, what she’s incapable of. She's still haunted by the memory of things she shouldn’t have done but _did,_ and things she should’ve done but didn’t. Not a day goes by that she doesn’t regret walking away. Not a day goes by without her wondering, pointlessly, what life might've been like if she'd _stayed_. But what keeps her awake at night is the terrifying thought that maybe she’d still make the same damned mistakes if she had a chance to do it all again. 

The selfish part of herself knows she’d give anything - everything - to see Dina and JJ again, but it’s the more selfless part of herself that knows she shouldn’t. They were better off now without her. 

She feared there were no more parts of her that were still soft - capable of loving them the way she wanted them to be loved; There might have been, once. But after the things she’d done, the things she’s seen - there wasn’t much of herself left to give.

She curls her right hand into a fist and bites her lip so hard that it draws blood. The silence in the empty church is eerie. She’d always been someone who’s good with silences, but now it terrifies her - makes her feel like there’s nothing keeping her from falling into a deep, dark abyss, with nothing to call her back. 

She’d come full circle - back to the place she’d first felt _alive,_ like her life was _worth_ something, to someone - maybe even a couple of someones. _Family. Home. Love._ The words feel funny on her tongue, unfamiliar once again, now that practically everyone she’d ever cared about is gone. She’d come to this town with nothing, and it had given her everything. Now though, she's right back to where she’d started. 

_II._

_All my stolen missing parts  
_ _I've no need for anymore_

Ellie sits down at one of the pews and stares up at the cross, thinking about what it meant to atone for one’s sins. She thinks about justice, and guilt, and revenge, and how she’d been so foolish to think that any of those things mattered. Suddenly, there are footsteps just by the entrance and she tenses, uninjured hand flying straight for her holster. Soon the footsteps grow closer, and the door swings open. There’s a long pause, then a woman’s voice echoes softly through the empty hall. “Never thought I’d see you here again.” 

Ellie turns around slowly, her gaze coming to rest on the shadowy figure standing stock-still by the door. “Guess I’m a lot more hardy than people give me credit for," She says. 

The older woman pads over slowly, her expression inscrutable. Finally, she stops directly in front of Ellie, the two of them separated only by the wooden pew. The woman looked tired - the lines in her face deeper and more haggard than Ellie remembered. Apparently, time _had_ passed without her. Ellie holds the woman’s gaze, guilt and shame and something like relief rising like bile through her throat. A long beat of silence passes, until she finally says, “Life’s been treating you well?” And it comes out more like a croak. 

Maria scoffs at that and rolls her eyes. “I’m alive,” She points out, raising a wry eyebrow. “I don’t think any of us know what ‘well’ looks like. Not in the last couple of decades, at least.” 

Ellie snorts at this and slowly unclenches her fist. “What’re you doing here anyway?” She asks, waving a hand vaguely around her. “You never struck me as the religious type.” 

Maria shakes her head. “Neither did you,” She says. 

Ellie shrugs again. “Just got into town. Wanted a quiet place to sit and think for a while. They say a church’s a good place for that,” She says, simply. 

Maria regards her for a moment, before stepping closer. “Ellie. You gotta let it go.” She lays a hand on the younger woman’s shoulder, eyes softening slightly. “I don’t know what happened out there, and I don’t know if I’ll ever know. But - I _do_ know that whatever did or didn’t take place will continue to eat you up from the inside if you don’t find a way to forget it.” 

Ellie takes a long shuddering breath, then lets it out again softly. “I don’t know _how_ ,” She says, and sounds so broken and tired that Maria’s heart nearly breaks for this strange girl that she’s come to see almost as a daughter. Ellie looks away, and her voice shakes - very slightly, as she admits, “I thought - I thought that going after her would help with - the forgetting. But it’s only added more things I _can’t_ forget.” 

“Come to the bar with me,” Maria decides. And Ellie’s about to say no, but the look on Maria’s face leaves no room for disagreement - it’s an order, not a request.

So, minutes later, Ellie finds herself hunched over a stool, swirling a drink in her hand. It tastes almost exactly the same as those she’d gotten with Jesse that night, right before Dina had kissed her for the first time. 

Many of the bartenders and regulars had noticed her walk in with Maria. From the look in their eyes, the gentleness in the way they stepped in to embrace her - as though she were some sort of fragile glass statue - she knew they knew what had happened. She isn’t surprised. Maria and Tommy knew everyone in town, and word got round fast in a place like Jackson. 

Maria gets her up to speed on everything that has haplened since her absence. How they’d been sending out peace envoys and diplomatic parties and search missions - all working toward a day when they’d finally stop the senseless bloodshed between surviving uninfected groups; They’d even laid down some inter-factional legislation protecting those who were ‘immune’ from being captured by those who’d wanted to force them into becoming involuntary test subjects. Most importantly perhaps, there had been a lot of progress on inter-factional collaborative research, with initial tests for a vaccine showing promising results. The one thing that Maria does not mention is Dina and JJ, and Ellie's thankful for that.

She takes it all in as she sips her drink, feeling the warmth spread deep into her chest. “How can I help?” She asks finally, when Maria’s done. 

Maria lifts an eyebrow. “You’re here to stay?” 

And Ellie flinches at the word, feeling like a knife has lodged itself deep into her chest. Her eyes flutter shut. “ _Stay_ ,” Dina had said, both hands clutched around her face. _Please,_ her eyes had said. But Ellie had stepped back, walked out, and that had been that. 

She clenches her jaw and forces herself to breathe. “Yes,” She grits out. “That’s the plan, anyway. Will you help me sell the farmhouse so I can get a place in town?” 

Maria eyes her thoughtfully. “Why not start afresh, somewhere else?” She asks, genuinely curious. 

Ellie shrugs, then sighs. She’d been doing both things a lot, lately. Ever since she’d made her way back to the farmhouse and found it empty. “I thought about that,” She says. “A lot. But - Joel, you, Jesse, Dina _,_ you’ve made this place home, whether I like it or not. I can’t bring myself to be anywhere else. At least, not after all that’s happened.” 

Maria nods. “We always need armed escorts for the diplomatic and scientific envoys," Shs says finally. "One’s going out in two days, actually.” She raises an eyebrow at Ellie. “You could join them.” 

And Ellie nods. The world she'd known was rebuilding itself, and she figures that maybe, just maybe, so could she. 

III.

 _Hey angel, I am here to stay  
_ _No resistance, no alarms_

Maria gets her a tiny second-storey apartment on main street, and it’s a little run-down, but she doesn’t have to share it with anyone. Three times a week, she accompanies the regular envoys out, then back to Jackson. Sometimes the trips last a few days, sometimes longer. There’s hardly any action, usually, but when things get rowdy, well - suffice to say she continued to live up to her out-sized reputation for brawling. Soon, Maria starts trusting her to lead her own envoys, and then she starts leading exploratory expeditions, too. They map the surrounding territories a little more comprehensively, sometimes venturing into uncharted areas, sometimes sticking to regular trails - flagging up dangerous areas, scoping out new hide-outs and safe-houses, updating existing information and so on. 

The work keeps her busy. Ellie gets a little closer to a couple of the other armed escorts. She meets them for drinks and dinner from time to time. Seth and Maria and a couple of her old friends invite her over to their place once every week or so, and sometimes they play pool or go hunting and fishing together on the weekends. For the most part, though, she keeps largely to herself. She’s always been a rather solitary person, now more than ever. 

She takes long rides out into the country, works out, buys herself a guitar and writes a whole bunch of songs with the few chords that she’s still able to play with three fingers. They help, just a little, with the pain and the grief and the anger. She’s been sleeping better too, with fewer nightmares. 

In many ways, she was healing. But in many other ways, she knew that there were some parts of herself that were lost forever or - perhaps, would stay empty forever. The phantom pain from her missing digits is one thing, but the phantom pain from everything else that’s missing is quite another thing altogether. Still, she's finding out new things about herself too, learning, growing, adding to the things she's lost.

She’s not whole - perhaps never was and never will be - but she’s _trying_ to learn to be okay with that. 

Until one day, she arrives at Maria’s house a little earlier than she’d planned to. Just as she’s about to ring the doorbell, she hears raised voices. It’s Tommy. She’d been avoiding him since coming back to Jackson, and hadn’t seen him since the day he’d showed up to her place - _their_ place to tell her about Abby. She doesn’t blame him for what happened, but she hadn’t felt ready to deal with the memories that would come flooding back when she _did_ see him again. 

“-You shouldn’t have told her about Abby then, and I sure as _fuck_ won’t let you tell her about Dina this time,” Maria’s yelling, and Ellie can’t remember the last time she’d heard the woman raise her voice. “I won't let you ruin that child’s life again.” 

Ellie feels lightheaded. The entire world seemed to be spinning around her. She rests a hand on the front door to steady herself, and forces herself to keep breathing. All these months, she hadn’t asked anyone about Dina. It had taken every _ounce_ of her willpower, but up till now, she’d been able to keep herself from doing it. She knew that if she did, she wouldn’t be able to stay away. And the woman deserved _more,_ deserved _better._

The voices inside the house grow softer, and she sucks in a breath - lets it out slowly, sucks in another, and lets it out again until the mist in her brain starts to lift. That is, until the door pulls open and she nearly falls through. Catching herself quickly, she stops herself from toppling right into Tommy, who stares down at her in surprise. 

“ _Ellie_ ?” His eyes are widening, and Ellie blinks rapidly. He puts both hands on her shoulders. “I’m so sorry, Ellie, I - I’m glad you’re alright.” He blinks the tears from his eyes fiercely, voice cracking. “I was an _idiot,_. I’d never have been able to live with myself if you’d-” 

“I’m _fine._ ” Ellie interjects, reaching over with her good hand to take one of his. “And yes, we’re all idiots. Tell me something I don’t know,” She says, rolling her eyes. 

His chin wobbles a little as he squeezes her hand. He opens his mouth to say something else, but closes it again, eyes searching her face plaintively. Ellie can’t quite read his expression. Maria, silent till now, shoots him a pointed glare, and he looks away quickly, clearly conflicted.

Ellie looks at the two of them, then shakes her head. “Anyone gonna tell me what all of this is about?” 

“Well-” Tommy starts. 

“No-” Maria finishes, firmly. 

“Is Dina alright?” Ellie asks, softly. It’s the first time she’s said Dina’s name out loud in _months,_ and it sends a physical jolt of pain through every fibre of her being. Maria and Tommy exchange glances. 

“That’s the thing,” Tommy says finally. “We don’t know." 

Maria squeezes her eyes shut, as though willing herself not to murder the man right there and then. “It’s better you don’t hear about this,” She says, opening her eyes again to stare straight at Ellie. Her voice is calm with an undercurrent of steel. “You’ve been through _enough_ as it is.” 

“That’s my decision to make,” Ellie says, just as fiercely. 

The woman sighs and a long silence passes before she finally says, “She’s been part of our scientific envoy to the western territories for a while now. Well. Ever since-”

“I left,” Ellie finishes for her, impatiently. “She’s an armed escort, too?” 

“No, she’s actually - she’s part of the team working on the TBH10 vaccine trials. Been living over at Bonticou, with the other scientists.” Of the many concurrent trials being run, the TBH10 trial had been one of the most promising. 

“She’s a scientist?” Ellie asks, the corners of her lips curling upward. “Since when?” In spite of everything, she felt pride swell up in her chest.

“Had a background in biomedical sciences back in the day and well - she’s been training with some of the best. Either way - the girl’s a fast learner.” Maria says, smiling faintly before turning serious once more. “The lab’s been captured by rebel forces. Those that aren’t happy with the inter-factional legislations and peace treaties that have been signed recently. They’ve held some scientists hostage, and rumour has it that a handful of others have managed to escape. The rest… haven’t been so lucky.” 

“ _What,_ ” Ellie feels her blood run cold. “What d’you mean? Are we sending anyone out there?” Something seems to be clawing at her throat and squeezing the air right out of her lungs - she feels a wild panic seize her, and she looks frantically from Maria to Tommy, then back at Maria. She hadn’t thought she had anything left to lose, but apparently the universe thought differently. 

Maria puts a calm hand on her shoulder. “Hey, hey-” She tilts Ellie’s chin up gently. “We’ve already sent a scouting party out, and we’re making preparations to send in another, more heavily armed team tomorrow morning. The other factions who have scientists in that lab are also sending extraction teams over. We're on it, you hear?” She grips Ellie’s shoulder a little tighter. “You hear me?” She repeats, and Ellie blinks a few more times, eyes finally coming into focus. 

“I’m going out there tomorrow,” She says. 

Maria hesitates, but Tommy grunts, “Outside the church at 0700 tomorrow." He's unable to meet Maria’s eyes. Ellie nods at him and marches out of the house without another word. 

IV. 

_When hurricanes and cyclones raged  
_ _When wind turned dirt to dust_

The next morning, she shows up with her horse, three different kinds of guns, and two knives. She doesn’t look at all out of place among the rag-tag team - all of them wearing mangled scars and looks as haunted as hers. They ride out at dawn. 

Along the way, they meet a WLF delegation on their way to Bonticou. Ellie is surprised that she no longer feels that deep, roiling coil of hatred deep in her gut. A WLF fighter brings his horse up level with hers. “Hey, I uh - I heard about what happened, with Abby and the rest.” He says. And she tenses up immediately, fingers curling tightly around the stirrups. “I just wanted to say - my whole family was murdered by people from Boston a long time ago. I know what it feels like to lose everything you ever loved.” He shoots her a wry grin. “It sucks,” He summarises. 

She barks out a laugh that surprises her as much as it surprises him. “It does,” She says.

“Life moves on, though, even after the most unimaginable tragedies." He says. “So should we.”

Ellie nods, and the WLF fighter gives her a final smile before urging his horse forward to rejoin the rest of his group. 

They meet up with the initial scouting group at the forest clearing just outside the gated boundaries of the lab. To say the least, there’s not many of them left - and the ones that remain are barely alive. One man, bleeding profusely from a large gash on his forehead, gasps out, “They’re clearing everything out. All the data, everything. There’s at least a hundred of them. We tried to reason with them - but they wouldn’t listen. Weren’t here to ‘talk’, one of them said.” 

The official decision is to go in. Ellie's right there at the front of the pack, fighting her way through a thick wad of rebels. She’s barely thinking, barely seeing - just running on pure adrenaline and muscle memory, slipping fluidly back to the person she used to be. Then someone says something about ‘the scientists’ and in a heartbeat, she has him shoved up against a wall, knife blade pressed tight enough against his throat to draw blood. “ _Where are they?_ ” She growls. 

He swallows, adam’s apple bobbing up and down in panic. She presses down harder, and his face turns white. “I-in the basement,” He croaks out, pointing toward a stairwell to their left. She pushes him away roughly and starts running. 

A couple of others follow after her, but Ellie’s too focused to even really notice. She slices two men down and shoots a third barrelling up the stairs toward her. She’s not sure if five minutes or fifty minutes pass, but soon she’s bashing her shoulder into a barricaded door. It finally collapses under her weight. Many pairs of eyes glance up at her. She quickly ducks back behind the door, narrowly missing the spray of bullets that come her way. She spins back round and takes two masked men out with deadly precision, before ducking back for cover. The others who’ve followed closely behind her take out five, maybe six rebels before someone has the brains to start pointing a gun to their hostages. 

“Stop shooting or we’ll blow their fuckin’ brains out!” A woman’s voice carries over the noise of the fighting around them. Ellie and the five others exchange glances, and freeze. “Drop your weapons and come in with your hands over your heads!"

Ellie doesn’t know about the rest of them, but she sure as _fuck_ isn’t about to gamble with any of the lives behind that door - particularly if Dina is one of them. She immediately drops her gun and walks in, arms raised. She comes face to face with four masked rebels, all of whom are pointing guns at her. But all she can see is the dark-haired woman staring up at her from across the room. Their eyes meet, and all Ellie can hear is the roar and rush of blood between her ears.

Two shots ring out, loud and true, and Ellie wonders for a moment if she’s been shot. But it’s from behind her - two rebels crumple to the ground, and the third immediately shoots the scientist she’d been holding tightly in her arms. Ellie jerks into action immediately - launches herself at the fourth - the woman who’d yelled at them to drop their weapons - and knocks the gun out of her hand. 

Another shot rings out, and she knows the third rebel has killed another scientist. She doesn't have time to look though - the woman she'd just disarmed is reaching now for her knife. Ellie spins round and tosses the woman over her shoulder, but the tip still slices a deep cut through her right arm. Then she notices that the third rebel has reloaded and is now taking aim at Dina. There’s no time to think - Ellie leaps, and the bullet leaves the barrel of the gun and buries itself deep into her gut. Gasping, she falls to the ground, struggling to breathe. Then there’s a sickening crunch as someone brings something hard - and heavy - down on her head and everything fades to black. 

V. 

_Back when I was feeling broken  
_ _You came deep as any ocean_

When she finally awakens, she’s in a hospital, and she can just about make out the blurry outline of a face she’d once thought she’d never see again. Thick, strong eyebrows framing the pair of kindest, most expressive eyes she’s ever seen. _Dina._ Her shallow, labored breaths seem to come to a complete standstill. She blinks, then takes it all in, inhales it, like a long-forgotten scent. She memorises the curve of Dina’s lips, the exact scattering of freckles over her cheeks, the crinkles around her eyes, every line and dip and divot. Then Dina pulls back and stands up. Ellie wants to reach out, but her arms feel like they're clamped to bed, pinned down by gravity and the long, troubled past between them. Dina walks toward the door, but she hesitates a little after pulling the door open. She casts one final look back at Ellie before stepping out. 

Ellie falls in and out of fitful sleep after that. She’s still not entirely sure if she’d imagined the whole thing. Still, she feels lighter, somehow. Like a large weight had been lifted off her chest. 

Later on - she doesn’t know if it’s hours or minutes or days - she feels well enough to sit up and the doctors try to explain to her how lucky she is to be alive. Apart from the bullet wound to her abdomen, which had apparently missed multiple vital organs by a hair’s breadth, she’d suffered a pretty bad concussion. The mission itself had ended in a decisive victory, and they'd managed to clear the rebels out of the lab. She surprises herself by thinking that maybe she _is_ lucky to be alive. In spite of everything. Maybe _because_ of everything. 

After all, she’d gotten to see Dina; she'd gotten to know that she was doing okay. It was far more than she'd dared to hope for, and it was everything that she needed. 

VI. 

_All the demons used to come 'round  
_ _I'm grateful now they've left_

She doesn’t ask about Dina again, after that, and no one volunteers the information despite the constant stream of visitors to her room, bearing all sorts of other news and gifts and well-wishes. A few weeks pass, and she’s discharged from the hospital upon promising she’ll come back twice a week for rehabilitation. A few more weeks pass, and she eases slowly back into a similar routine at Jackson. Maria doesn’t let her serve as an armed escort, not in her current condition, but she does accompany a few teams on their regular patrols. She gets her strength back, slowly, as well as most of her memories, even if some are lost forever. It was a miracle at all that she’d been able to remember as much as she did. There were things she’d sooner forget, but many other things she’d never want to. 

She reads a lot. Writes more songs. Begins riding again. Starts going out for dinner with her group of friends. Spends more nights out around town. If she’s honest, she always scans the streets for a sign of a familiar face, but it never shows up. She’s not sure if Dina’s back at the lab, though she knows that it’s been up and running again since last month. 

One night, she’s having dinner over at Maria’s place when the woman broaches the topic. “She asks if you’re doing alright,” Maria says, and Ellie tenses up a little before letting out a soft laugh. 

“What did you tell her?” She asks. 

“I told her I’d ask you,” Maria says, lips twitching up into a small, lopsided smile. 

“Well, sometimes I wonder the same thing,” Ellie says, as lightheartedly as possible. A short pause, then she shifts her gaze up to meet the older woman’s. “How- How about her? JJ?” Her voice breaks a little. 

“I’ll… be sure to ask them,” Maria says, the wry smile spreading farther across her cheeks. 

Ellie rolls her eyes. “Damned useless messenger owl you are,” She says. And that’s all they say regarding the topic for the night. 

VII.

 _All the promises at sundown  
_ _I've meant them like the rest_

One day in early spring, just as the snow had begun to thaw, Ellie arrives early for her regular patrol. It was one of her favourite routes - the creek trail, which always reminds her of well, Dina, who'd first done the route with her. She leans on the wooden fence and watches a bunch of children play tag as she waits for her regular partner on the route - Scotty - to show up. 

She sees someone walking over toward her from a couple hundred feet out. “Finally. Not sure why he drinks so much coffee if it’s not doing anything to help with the oversleeping,” She mumbles, but the words die instantly on her lips as the figure gets closer and she realizes it’s not Scotty, or Ben, or any of the usual patrollers. The woman’s gait is immediately recognisable, even from that distance. She feels her heart constrict, and the dull ache that’s been lodged in her chest for the past year heightens into a sharp throb. 

Dina stops right in front of her, lifting one arched eyebrow. “If you ever do something as stupid as that again, I swear to god I’ll just kill you myself,” She says, softly. Her brown eyes are brimming with an emotion that Ellie can’t quite read. 

“You’re going to have to be a bit more specific,” Ellie breathes, holding Dina’s gaze. “I’ve done quite a lot of stupid things.”

Dina chokes out a laugh at this. She shakes her head and a single tear rolls down her cheeks. “Damn right,” She says, voice cracking slightly. "I meant taking that bullet."

Ellie shakes her head. That isn't the stupid thing she'd like to talk about - in fact, it isn't even on the list of things she considers stupid. She steps in a little closer and takes the other woman’s hands in hers. “Dina, I need you to know that I left that day because I thought it'd help me stop thinking about Joel's death. I knew I hadn’t been okay, not since his death, and I just - I wanted to _fix_ that, so I could love you - so I could love _myself -_ properly.” She bites her lip. “But I should’ve realized that killing those people and walking away from you-” She sucks in a shuddering breath and lets it out slowly. “-wasn’t ever going to fix anything.” Dina blinks, but doesn’t say anything, so Ellie keeps going. “I’m not asking for - for anything, Dina, I just - I just wanted you to know that I would choose you over everything. Always. That even back then, I was _trying_ to do that - in the dumbest possible way.” 

Dina sighs. There’s a charged silence, before the woman steps even closer, tilting her chin just slightly, so their faces are mere centimeters apart. “You don’t get to do this,” She says fiercely, voice low and thrumming with tightness. “You don’t get to leave and come back with a pretty explanation for the terrible thing you did and expect to get my permission to fuck our whole lives up all over again.” 

Ellie crumples a little, as though all the air in her soul had been sucked clean out. But she straightens up and puts on the bravest expression she can muster. “I know,” She says quietly, stepping back. “You go on ahead- I'll um- I’ll let Maria know to find someone else to-” The words die in her throat as Dina takes a step forward, closing the distance Ellie'd attempted to put between them.

"You're a fucking jerk," Dina interjects, voice as hard as steel.

Ellie blinks and bites her lip. "I-I know," She says, more brokenly this time. She's already turning away when Dina reaches out to catch her, cupping her hand around her chin. Their noses are practically touching now, and Ellie feels her heart flutter involuntarily even as she frowns in confusion. "Wha- Dina, what are you-"

She doesn't get to finish the sentence. Dina leans in to kiss her, and Ellie immediately kisses back, hungrily. The feel of Dina's lips against hers is everything she remembers and more. For the first time in months, maybe more than a year, she feels truly _alive. "You're a jerk, but I fuckin' missed you anyway," Dina breathes, eyes burning with a fierce intensity. Ellie sucks in a breath, and feels her heart thrum violently in response._

Dina pulls back finally, rocking back on her heels to survey her quietly. “JJ hasn’t stopped asking where you went,” She says, and there’s no bitterness or blame in her voice, just a tenderness that cleaves Ellie’s heart cleanly in two. “Clearly he’s growing up to be just as infuriating as you are.” 

Ellie lets out something between a laugh and a sob, and Dina’s stepping in to wrap her in a tight embrace. They hold each other for a long, long time. After what feels like an eternity, Ellie leans down to murmur, “If you ever want me back, I’m here. Always.” 

Dina draws back slightly, her eyes lingering on Ellie’s. She's silent for a long time before answering, “Okay. We’ll see.” And that’s more than enough for Ellie - more than she’d hoped to get, more than she knows she deserves. She still doesn’t believe in second chances, but she believes in luck and fate and on good days, she believes that the future doesn't necessarily have to be anything like the past. 

“I _love_ you, Dina," She says, blinking back tears. "And I’d like to spend the rest of my life proving it to you, if you'll let me."

Dina smiles, then says, “You’re damn lucky you still have some fingers left,” and winks. 

Ellie laughs and feels her heart swell up. For the first time in years, she feels hopeful. Excited, even, for the days and nights ahead. “You know I don’t need them,” She says, winking back, and they lean in for another kiss - slower this time, and it tastes a lot like the springtime air after a storm - the sweet, crisp promise of warmer days to come.

-

_And I believe 'cause I can see_  
_Our future days_  
_Days of you and me_

_-_


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ellie learns that it's a lot easier to leave than it is to return, and a lot harder to live than it is to die. She begins to wonder if love will be enough to save them.
> 
> // 
> 
> “I want you, Ellie,” Dina says simply, her eyes shining with something pure and fierce. “But it’s not just about me anymore. I have to do what’s best for JJ too. I’m still not sure what that looks like, and I’m not sure when or how I’ll ever come to be sure. If you wanted certainty, you shouldn’t have walked out that door.”

_**-** Take on me  
(a-ha)_

_VIII._

_Today's another day to find you / Shying away  
_ _I'll be coming for your love, okay_

Ellie sees Dina two, maybe three times in the next month, always on Dina’s terms, always on a patrol route that takes no longer than half a day. Mostly, conversation between them is light and natural enough, but they’re painfully cautious around each other - careful to give certain topics a wide berth: the past and the future are strictly off-limits, Ellie knows, and so is JJ. But she soon learns not to mention other things, too - because Dina’s lips grow taut and her face closes off immediately - as though someone were pulling shutters over her eyes and switching off the lights. So she steers clear of those lines of conversation too. They stick primarily to banter, and matter-of-fact observations about things that are right in front of them. When they run out of safe things to say, they lapse into silence.

It's not half bad. In some ways, it feels like they’re starting over - except this time, their roles are reversed; When Ellie had first arrived in Jackson, Dina had been one of the first to reach out to her and try to draw her out of her shell. Ellie had been wary of people then. She hadn't wanted to add anything to the list of things she might lose, one day. But Dina had been a constant thorn in her side, with her snark and her wisecracks, her smart-ass comments and innocent flirtation. Dina had given her space when she wanted it, tenderness even when she _didn’t_ want it, and most of all, she’d always been _there_ for her, no questions asked. 

The woman had followed her to all the way to Seattle - heck, to the depths of _hell_ \- and back. Ellie had tried to give her an out, but all she’d said was, _“You go, I go, end of story,”_ and had made it sound so simple, so clear.

Either way - the tables had turned, and Ellie was afraid she wouldn’t be able to do the same. She wishes she could be Dina, for Dina. She loved Dina, wanted her - more than anything she’d ever wanted in her life. God, she wanted Dina more than life itself. But she didn't know if that was enough to make her any better at loving Dina _right_. The way Dina had loved her, once.

Dina is a rock, strong and sure and solid; but Ellie - Ellie is not, has never been. She is the crashing tide, breaking and reforming along the rocky coast, swirling and tempestuous. Ellie isn’t sure she knows how to be the constant in someone else's life - not when her life has always felt like shifting sands in a desert. Not when the only constants in her world have been change and, well, _Dina_.

But for Dina, she’d like to try. She wanted to keep trying, for the rest of her life. She wanted it to be as simple and as clear as _yo_ _u stay, I stay, end of story_. 

...

For the most part, their rides out into the country are silent, and there’s a kind of weird, glass-like fragility to their interactions. Some moments are _good, warm,_ like sunshine breaking out through the clouds. Other times, Dina shuts off, shuts down, and they lapse into a silence so heavy and _final_ that Ellie worries that they'll never speak again. 

One step forward, two steps back. It’s like a strange sort of dance, Ellie thinks, a complex, intricate shuffle toward something that she hopes will be a future with Dina in it. 

So - it's been a month and Ellie still knows close to nothing about Dina’s life. When _she_ offers up personal information about herself, Dina always looks slightly startled, and rarely responds. Still though, Dina does leave her a trail of breadcrumbs, and whenever she _does say something beyond their usual banter, Ellie carefully stores it away in her brain like a squirrel hoarding nuts._

They hadn’t kissed again. Not since that day. Ellie catches Dina staring at her sometimes - has seen her eyes flick down to her lips at least a handful of times, and it sends a sharp pang to her gut each time. She'd be lying if she tried to deny that she yearned for Dina's touch with every fibre of her soul, but she's content to wait, content even to be in Dina’s life at all.

Heck, she could wait her whole damned life if that’s what it took. Still, she wonders if a person could die from all that pent-up desire. It would be a mighty ironic thing, to be immune to a global cordyceps brain infection, only to die of lust instead.

…

Fortunately for Ellie, it doesn't come to that. 

She's tying up their horses at the end of a hard - if quick - ride around the wooded areas to the North of Jackson when she feels Dina’s gaze drilling holes into her back.

“So, guess I’ll see you around,” Ellie says, turning round slowly. Dina’s expression gives nothing away. Ellie shrugs and scratches the back of her head. “Or not.” 

Suddenly, Dina’s pressing her up against the haystack and Ellie laughs, hands flying up in surrender. "Whoa, easy now, what did I-" And Dina doesn't answer, just grips her by the collar and yanks her in for a kiss. Ellie feels it like a hammer to her chest. The woman lets go of her collar and reaches up to bracket her face instead, tugging her forward for another kiss - more gently this time. Ellie brings her own hands up to rest uncertainly on Dina’s hips, but tightens her grip when Dina makes no move to shrug her off. 

When they break away, Ellie looks reverently at Dina and feels her heart do somersaults in her chest. “ _Fuck,_ ” she breathes, and savors the feeling. 

Dina smiles softly at that, and lets her hands drop to her sides. “That was JJ’s first word, too.” 

Ellie laughs. The sentence lies between them, sparkling like a jewel -a gift- testament of how much the woman was still willing to give, even after all the things Ellie had taken from her the day she'd walked out: her heart; their home; the family they’d built together. 

“ _Really_?” Ellie asks, throat constricting.

Dina’s expression softens. “Well. It sounded more like _fooa,_ but the intent was pretty clear. I made him finish his mushed peas.” 

Ellie laughs again, and as much as Dina wants to deny it, she’d _missed_ that sound. She doesn’t want to need Ellie - doesn’t want to want her, not if she wasn't sure that she could have her.

Ellie's the first to break the silence. “I’d curse too, if I had to eat that shit,” She jokes, but can't quite keep the undercurrent of pain and tenderness from her voice. Dina just shakes her head. There’s another heavy silence, and Ellie swallows nervously before blurting, “D’you want to - I dunno - get something to eat after this, maybe?” 

Ellie knows by the look on Dina’s face that it’s too much, too fast. She licks her lips and backpedals. “It’s OK, forget I asked. I just - well, you probably want to get back to your mushed peas.” She looks down and shifts her weight from one foot to the other. 

Dina’s heart nearly breaks. She knows how hard Ellie’s trying, to be OK, to make it work between them. But ever since she’d left, Dina feels like the pieces of herself that she’d been holding together so fiercely - for JJ, for Ellie - had simply collapsed and, try as she might, she hasn’t been able to fit them back together. Something was missing, hollow, and she didn’t know how to change that. 

She doesn’t want to feel this way - doesn’t want to feel the sharp tug of bitterness - _fear,_ above all - that claws and clings to her throat, burning its way down like fire all the way to her lungs, whenever she thinks about what was and what could have been. “Look, Ellie, I love you,” She starts, and sounds so tired and so broken that Ellie’s not sure if she’s brave enough to hear the rest. Dina says it anyway. “But I’m not sure if it’s enough.” 

The fragile, brittle thing she feels for Ellie doesn’t feel _solid, firm,_ enough for her to put any weight on it; Dina doesn’t trust it enough not to collapse under her as soon as she takes one step toward it. She’s not sure if love is enough to make up for the gaping hole in her heart where trust had been. Not sure what happens to that trust, once it's been lost. Wonders if it's something that grows back, like a seed, after a long and heavy storm.

Ellie swallows. She blinks back the tears, and tries to be strong, for Dina - tries to be kind, to herself - tries not to think of it as cosmic punishment for the choice she’d made all those months ago. “Okay,” She says. “I said it was my decision to leave, and yours if I ever made it back. And I - I meant that." Dina’s last words to her had been _I’m not going to do this again._ She'd said _that’s up to you,_ and then she'd let the door swing shut behind her.

Now - well, now it was time to make good with that. “Just - say the word, and you’ll never see me again," Ellie says, voice no moee than a hoarse whisper. She looks up at Dina and begs with her eyes, the way Dina had, when she'd been trying to get her to stay. She subconsciously fingers the bracelet on her left hand. Don't say it, she breathes, and sends a prayer up to the gods she's never believed in.

Dina doesn't tell her to leave, but the anger in her eyes burn red-hot. Ellie doesn’t understand it, and it scares her more than anything she's seen before; punches the air right out of her lungs. “You think any of this is _my_ decision?" Dina starts, voice shaking as she takes a step forward, so their bodies are practically flush against each other. "You think I _want_ to feel this way? I wanted _-_ I _want_ \- us to be OK, Ellie, it’s all I ever wanted.” Dina’s tone is sharp enough to slice through diamond. But even then, the hardness in her voice isn’t enough to hide the pain. “D’you know how impossible it is to walk away from you, when all I want is for _you_ not to walk away from _me_?” 

Ellie shakes her head and a single tear rolls down her cheeks. “ _Dina,_ I won’t - I fuckin’, I swear -”

Dina cuts her off. There’s fire in her eyes, and Ellie feels a chill spread right down to her toes. “Don’t you dare make promises you can’t keep,” She spits. “D’you know how it felt to lock the house up each time you left, thinking it might be the last time I saw you? D’you know how it felt to see you take that bullet, at the lab? Thinking you’d die right in front of me, knowing I couldn’t do _shit_ to stop it?”

Ellie’s heart stops and she feels the world swirl around her - Joel’s face; the golf club; Abby’s fingers, curled around the metal shaft; images she’d buried deep within her, flash through her mind’s eye. “Oh my god,” She says, struggling to breathe. “Oh fuck Dina I’m sorry, I never-”

But Dina's not done. “D’you know how it feels like to love you more than anything else in the world, all the while knowing that one day, you’ll actually _fucking_ die for the long _fucking_ list of things you care about more than your own life?” Dina's voice is quiet, but she might as well have yelled it in Ellie’s face. 

“I’m trying to narrow that list down,” Ellie says, desperately. “It’s just you and JJ now, I promise,” 

“Dammit, Ellie, I don’t need - I don’t _want_ you to die for me,” Dina says, raising her voice at last. She looks away, and Ellie catches the glint of moisture in her eyes even as she blinks it fiercely away. “I just want _you_ ,” She says, softer this time. 

“You have me, Dina,” Ellie says, taking the woman’s hands in each of her own. The look in her eyes is pure, honest, and Dina _wants_ to believe her, really, she does. A long moment passes, before Dina slips her hands out from Ellie’s grip and turns away. 

The doors swing shut behind her. 

_IX._

_I'll be gone  
_ _In a day or two_

Nearly a month passes, and Ellie hears nothing from Dina. Then, on a warm late-spring night, the sound of soft, tentative knocking mixes in with the late-night cicadas and the quiet tune she was plucking out on her guitar. Puzzled, she sets her guitar down, picks up her gun, and heads over. 

It’s Dina. She cocks an eyebrow at the pistol in Ellie's good hand. Ellie shrugs. “Old habits die hard I guess," She says, putting the gun away as she eyes the other woman cautiously. “I’m guessing Maria told you where I live.”

Dina nods, and comes right to it. “Look. I’m sorry if what I said that day reminded you of... Joel. That wasn’t my intention.”

Ellie gives her a small wry smile. “It’s okay, Dina, I get why you said it. I never thought about it that way before and you're right, I guess." She shrugs. "I mean, I would much rather die than be the one who has to live on without you. So, all this time - I’ve just been shunting that burden off to you.” She stares down glumly at the floor and scratches at her fore-arm absently. 

“Hey," Dina says, and reaches out gently to cup Ellie's chin and tilts it so their gazes meet. "I want us to work, Ellie. But not if I have to spend every minute of every day worrying that it might be the last one I get to spend with you,” Dina says, staring intently at Ellie. “I’m not delusional. I know we could both die any day - but I need to know you’re trying your _fuckin’_ best not to. For me.” 

Ellie nods, wordlessly, and Dina scrutinizes her a long time before finally saying, “Okay. Well - are you gonna invite me in or what?” 

Ellie huffs out a laugh and heaves the door wider, stepping aside to let Dina pass. The woman stands in the living room, taking it all in. It’s not a lot more than a single square space - a tiny stove sits next to a battered up fridge she’d rescued from a dumpster and fixed up; there’s a counter with two kitchen stools, a ratty old couch Maria had donated, and a bed sits tucked into the corner at the far-end, next to a door that led to the toilet. It’s not exactly a home - just the bare minimum a human needs to survive, but there are also small hints of the woman in the tiny space - an intangible _feeling_ that this was _Ellie's_ place.

Dina arches an eyebrow at the row of cans lying on the windowsill to dry out. Some of them have green shoots poking out of black earth. “Someone’s been eating a lot of baked beans and canned sardines,” She notes. 

“Can’t cook like you can,” Ellie grunts, hastily gathering up the papers she’d been scribbling on before Dina had showed up. “Thought maybe I shouldn't bother.” 

Dina shakes her head. “Yeah - let me tell you, that’s really not what you say when you're trying to win somebody back,” She says, rolling her eyes. 

Ellie grins at this. “What if I told you I’m growing weed in those cans?” She cocks a chin at the row of plants beginning to sprout up. 

Dina’s eyes widen, then she laughs, and the sound makes Ellie’s heart sing. "Maybe," Dina says. "If it’s better than Eugene’s musty old crap." Her gaze soon drifts over to the sheets of paper clutched in Ellie’s hand. Then she glances over at the guitar leaning on the wall beside her. “You still play?” She asks softly. 

Ellie picks at the scar on her arm. “Well. Yeah. I taught myself to play with my other hand," She says. Somehow, it seems like an apt metaphor for her life. She'd started off feeling frustrated - each hand, so used to doing their separate jobs, had to re-learn things that had felt so natural to the other; old songs that she'd known by heart suddenly felt so _difficult -_ her fingers stumbling around the strings like a newborn baby learning to walk again. But then she'd started thinking of it like, learning a new language, a new way of _thinking,_ a new way of releasing the music that wove through her brain - and that had felt a lot better: Less like something was _missing,_ or lost or inadequate,and a little more like something new. 

“Will you - play a song for me?” Dina asks, and Ellie blinks. “Sorry - I mean, you don’t have to,” Dina says quickly, and Ellie just rests her hand on the woman’s shoulder. 

“I can, if you promise not to laugh,” She says, picking up the guitar.

“No guarantees,” Dina says, smiling, but she settles back against the counter as Ellie begins to pluck out a slow tune. Dina recognises it instantly, and it makes her heart flutter. 

“ _Talking away, I don’t know what I’m to say_ _but / I’ll say it anyway,_ ” Ellie begins, her voice picking up strength as she goes. It’s different, from what Dina remembers - it seems like a lifetime ago now. Ellie’s voice feels deeper, slightly more husky, than it had sounded those months ago, and Dina wonders if it's her faulty memories or if the weight you carried on your shoulders could somehow bleed over to your voice, too. The guitar sounded _different_ too, Dina thinks - but she's no expert and doesn’t really know _what_ exactly was different about Ellie's playing, but the same song sounded like it had a different soul, a different skeleton, as though Ellie'd somehow figured out how to spell the same word with a different alphabet.

Ellie’s gaze flicks to hers near the end of the song, and when she sings “ _Take me on / Take on me,_ ” again, the plaintive longing in her voice is almost too much for Dina to bear. 

“Seems like there are a number of things you can still do with two missing digits,” Dina says when Ellie’s done, trying to keep her tone light-hearted. 

Ellie’s not biting though. She sets the guitar down and scoots a little closer to Dina. “I know everything’s _different,_ now, Dina but - it doesn’t have to be _worse_.” 

Dina considers this for a long time. “No,” She says finally. “It doesn’t have to be.”

_X._

_So needless to say  
_ _I'm odds and ends_

After that first evening at Ellie’s place, they see each other a lot more - they start with drinks, then work themselves up to dinner and the occasional stroll through nearby forests or mountains. It’s nice, and things have gotten a lot smoother round the edges - Ellie no longer feels like she has to tip-toe around Dina. They were back to being _friends_ now, almost. 

Maria had even taken to inviting them both over for dinner, Tommy too - and the four of them sat round the table, passing the salt and pepper. It was weird - four grizzled veterans, reaching for some semblance of _normalcy._

Ellie tries to romance Dina, as best as she can - as best as she knows. She writes her melodies that sound suspiciously like love songs, sings them to her when she comes over. She pours her love into the plants on her windowsill, and carefully hand-rolls the first batch into joints. She saves them all for Dina, and they smoke them together on Ellie’s porch on the weekends, listening to the spring rain and crickets. The world is just beginning to awaken from its long winter slumber. When Dina leaves Ellie's house that night to pick JJ up from Jesse's parents, she can't stop thinking about death and rebirth, and about the way endings seem to bleed into new beginnings. 

One evening, after their joint turns into a stub, Ellie flicks it into the bushes and they continue sitting side-by-side on the porch step, tracing the sun’s slow arc across the sky. Dina reaches over for her hand. Wordlessly, they lean into each other and watch the golden light slowly fade into blue.

Dina’s fingers brush briefly over the Hamsa bracelet on Ellie's wrist. She'd tied it just before Ellie had left again, and it had been a long, sleepless few hours, waiting for her return. Dina blinks, stares down at it, studies the intricate patterns made by the thin threads as they wove round each other. "You still have it,” She says, quietly.

Ellie just stares at her. “Of course,” She says, rolling her eyes. “I’m stupid, but not stupid enough to lose something like that. Anyway - it seems to work.” Her lips curl up into a gentle smile. “Brought me back to you, didn’t it?”

Dina smiles too, and feels the tears start to fall. “Oh Dina,” Ellie sighs, and wraps her arms around her shoulders, pulling her into a tight embrace. 

Then Dina tips her chin up and captures Ellie’s lips in a bruising kiss. It deepens, swirling like a hurricane, and threatens to consume them both. “Into the house,” Dina grunts, scrabbling to her feet and tugging Ellie after her. 

Ellie pulls back a little, eyes meeting Dina’s. “You sure about this?” 

And Dina nods, eyes blazing intently as she backs Ellie up against her own door. “Unless you want the entire town to hear you moan my name,” She says, voice low, a glint in her eyes. 

Ellie’s knees nearly buckle at the thought. “Oh _fuck,_ ” She mutters, and shoves Dina off to get the door open. 

“You're finally getting the point,” Dina says, breathlessly, and pushes her into the bed. 

And Ellie maybe should’ve expected it - but Dina’s determined to draw it out as long as she bloody can. Pins her hands above her with one arm and sets the pace, slowing down whenever she feels Ellie nearing the edge - bringing her tantalizingly close only to rip it gently away from her. Ellie’s a hair’s breadth away from crumbling. “Dina, I _swear to god,_ ” She huffs, voice trembling as she arches up to meet Dina’s hand. 

“I think this is between you and me,” Dina growls, pressing a deep kiss to Ellie’s neck - the spot she knows always makes Ellie squirm. It still does. Ellie bites down on her lip, and attempts to grind down on Dina’s fingers, but the woman’s too quick for her. She lifts an eyebrow. “Oh, is that how we’re playing it now?”

Ellie lets out a soft whimper, well and truly broken now. “ _Please,_ ” She grits out, and the grin on Dina’s face grows wider. Ellie's opening her mouth, but whatever she's about to say next is lost to posterity as Dina finally gives Ellie what she'd wanted.

The release that comes is white-hot, and claims all of Ellie’s consciousness. When she finally opens her eyes again, Dina’s smiling down at her. “You fucking jerk,” is what she manages to say, and Dina laughs, rolling off. "Careful now,” She warns, smirking. "I can and I will do it again." She rearranges their positions so she can rest her head on Ellie's shoulder.

Dina sobers up quickly when she feels a wet splosh on her head. She pulls back slightly to stare up at Ellie, pulling the woman into her arms. “Hey - oh shit, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to-”

Ellie shakes her head and brings a hand up to swipe at the tears. “No, no - don’t - I don’t know why I’m crying,” She says, laughing wetly. “Just - hold me?” 

Dina hugs her tight. They lie there for a long time, as dusk turns fully to night. Finally, Ellie says into the darkness, “Don’t think for a moment that I’m letting you off the hook for what you did.”

Dina laughs and kisses her on the nose. “No, you take your grudges very seriously,” She says, and immediately regrets it. Ellie tenses in her arms, and Dina freezes too. A moment passes, and Ellie relaxes, then flips them over. 

Moving to straddle the woman, Ellie growls, “You’re going to pay for that, too,” and Dina grins up at her, blinking slowly. Her face is open and warm, and Ellie feels her heart swell up and she shakes her head. “You’re beautiful,” She says, almost reverently, and Dina starts laughing again. “Oh cut me some slack,” Ellie complains, smacking the woman in the arm. “I can’t help saying it if you _are_. I mean, have you seen you?” 

“Last time you said that, you were trying to tell me how infuriating I was,” Dina notes. 

“Yes. Both.” Ellie says, leaning down to kiss her. 

And as it turns out, Dina does get what she deserves that night, many times over. When they finally roll apart, chests heaving, to stare up at the ceiling, limbs tangled up in the sheets and with each other, Dina feels even the deepest frozen recesses of her heart begin to thaw. 

_XI._

_But I'll be stumbling away  
_ _Slowly learning that life is okay_

Still, even after that, Dina doesn’t come over to Ellie’s place often, and she never offers up her own place. Ellie understood, she really did, but she also lay awake at night wondering where they were headed, wondering what came after friendship, after the kisses, after the best sex she’s ever had in her life - that is, wonders _if_ anything came after that. Most of all, she wondered about JJ - the baby-sized elephant in the room. 

She’s been whittling a bunch of things in her free time. A toy sheep, a slingshot, and recently, more ambitiously - a little rocking horse. By her count, JJ would be turning one in a couple of days. She’d been mustering up the guts to talk to Dina about this, but each time she opens her mouth to say something - anything - the words feel like they’re lodged in her throat. She doesn’t know if it’s too much to ask, to ask to be inserted back into the child’s life again, but she also doesn’t know how they’d ever be able to truly be together if they didn’t even _talk_ about it.

She talks to Abby about it one morning, over coffee, and the bitter taste in her mouth feels somewhat fitting. “Should I give her more space? More time?” She asks, rubbing at her temples. “We’ve been sort of - I - ugh, I actually have no idea what we _are_ right now.” She turns her palms skyward and looks beseechingly at the older woman. 

“So ask,” Maria grunts, shrugging. 

Ellie groans and buries her head in her hands. “I _know,_ but - what if she’s not ready to - I mean, maybe I should wait a little more?”

Maria takes pity on the young woman and lays a hand on her shoulder. “Look. It could be. I don’t know. You don’t know. Best thing to do is find out.” She sighs and waves the empty coffee mug around. “You’re scared, obviously, but talking about it helps. The two o’ you’ll figure it out.” 

Ellie lifts both eyebrows. “You really think so?” She asks, twisting her hands around the mug anxiously. 

“I feel it in these old bones,” Maria confirms. “Unless. That twinge is just my rheumatism acting up. Been kinda cold lately, for late-spring.” 

Ellie rolls her eyes. “You’re not as old as you like people to think,” She says, tossing down a couple of coins to pay for her drink before standing up. Maria thanks the waitress and pushes her chair in as well. “For the record, this drink still sucks,” Ellie says, as they walk out of the small restaurant together. 

The next two nights, Ellie works on the wooden rocking horse as she toys with various ways of broaching the topic with Dina the next time they meet. She plans a whole entire speech but everything flies out her brain when the time comes to actually say it - Dina’s staring at her expectantly across two plates of pasta, and Ellie clears her throat nervously for the fourth time that night. “-Um, as I was saying, I wanted to ask-” She swallows, and wonders why it was that blowing a guy’s brains out was so easy, compared to this. Heck, _this_ made her want to blow her _own_ brains out.

She shifts uncomfortably in her seat and puts down her fork, trying desperately to remember even a tenth of what she’d planned to say. Eventually, she gives up and blurts, “I made a couple of things for… um. JJ’s birthday. It’s this Saturday, isn’t it? Maybe you could pass ‘em to him, or something?”

And there’s a long, long silence. Dina stares at Ellie, expression flitting from one complex, unreadable emotion to the next, and Ellie stares back, scarcely able to breathe. Finally, Dina sets down her utensils too and gives a slight, but utterly devastating shake of the head. “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” She says, and Ellie feels her insides start to crumble. 

“Oh.” She says, blinking fast. “I- uh, okay.” There’s another long silence, and this time, Ellie feels her heart caving in for good. 

“-I don’t know,” Dina says. “Not yet. I - just - keep the gifts. He’ll be here next month, and the month after that. Keep the gifts, and maybe you can pass them to him in person one day.” 

Ellie sucks in a breath and looks away. “One day’s looking a lot like never,” She says softly, and hates herself for saying it. Hates herself for not being able to give Dina the one thing she’d asked for - time, and space, to decide. 

Dina sighs and rubs at her eyes tiredly. “Look - you leaving _me_ behind - you breaking my heart - I can deal with that. But JJ - he’s just a baby. And when he grows up, he’ll-” Her voice trembles. “If you walk away from _him_ again, you could really hurt him, Ellie. I won’t do that to him. Even if it means I can’t have you.” 

“What are we doing then, Dina? What is this to you?” Ellie asks, brokenly. Dina reaches out for her hand across the table, but Ellie curls her fingers in, a clear - if subtle - signal, so Dina pulls back. 

“I want you, Ellie,” Dina says simply, her eyes shining with something pure and fierce. “But it’s not just about _me_ anymore. I have to do what’s best for JJ too. I’m still not sure what that looks like, and I’m not sure when or how I’ll ever come to be sure. But if you wanted certainty, you shouldn’t have walked out that door.” 

Ellie feels the words like a slap across the face, and suddenly, she’s angry. Doesn’t know if she has any right to be, but is tired of thinking that - tired of reminding herself what she has a right to feel and what she doesn’t. “How long are you going to keep throwing that at me?" She grits out. "How are we going to have a future if you’re always going to hold the past against me? I’m _trying_ not to let that choice define the rest of our lives - but I can’t do it if you don’t _let_ me.” 

Dina’s angry now too, and she leans forward, jabbing a finger into the table between them. “Listen here: I will _damned_ well throw that at you every time I _damned_ well please, because that’s what you did and _I_ had to live with the implications of that choice. I had to wonder _why_ , I had to wonder just how many things you’d choose over us, I had to wonder if one of those things would actually fucking kill you. So _forgive me_ for being scared - fucking _terrified_ \- that my son will have to wonder the same damned things if I let you back into his life.” 

Ellie stands up abruptly, chair scraping against the hardwood floor. “I won’t do this,” Ellie says, voice thrumming with tension. “I can’t. I’ve worked so hard to feel like I am _more_ than my past." Her voice breaks. "I regret what I did, Dina, but I need to have a life beyond the guilt, too. I realize that now.” Dina bites her lip, and Ellie turns away. "If he's really 'my' son too, like you kept telling me all through those first months," She says, unable to keep the bitterness out of her tone, "then I should get a say in this. But let’s face it. You’ve never thought of him as _ours_ , have you?” She knows it as soon as she says it that it might very well be the words that drive Dina away for good, but in some small, twisted part of herself, she almost _wants_ it to happen - wants something clean, something certain; wants to wrestle back some control over this mangled wreckage of all her fears and anxieties and hopes and regrets.

“Did you think of him as ours, when you left?” Dina spits back. There's fire in her eyes, fire and indescribable pain, and it makes Ellie feels sick to her gut. She wants to turn and leave - but she won’t. She just stands there, balling her fists so tightly that she cuts semi-circular slivers into her palms.

Dina, eventually, is the one who does. It's only when the doors bang shut behind her that Ellie crumples into her seat, feeling as though everything she’s ever cared about has been wrenched away from her yet again. 

_XII._

_Say after me  
_ _It's no better to be safe than sorry_

Ellie’s not surprised when there’s a knock on her door the next morning, but she _is_ surprised to see Tommy, instead of Maria, standing on the porch. “Not in the mood,” She says, and is about to slam the door in his face and go back to bed when he sticks his foot in the door frame. The door bounces off his boot with a thud and he curses. “Ow!” He glares at her through the sliver of space created by his shoe. “You didn’t have to slam _that_ hard,” He accuses. “Look, kid. We’re screw-ups, you and me. But here’s the difference: Maria _took me back._ ”

“Yeah what, you here to gloat now? Fuck off,” She says, heaving the door open with the clear intent of slamming it again, boot in the doorway or not. 

“Wait-” He growls, sticking his hand into the doorframe now, along with his boot. 

Ellie lifts an eyebrow. “You trying to lose some of your fingers too? That’s gonna hurt.” 

“Stop it, kid. The leaving’s easy, it’s the coming back that takes a whole fucking lot of work,” He says. “Just like how the dying’s a fucking piece of cake, and living is just a long stream of shite to wade through.” 

Ellie rolls her eyes. “What, so you came to wax poetic at me?” 

“I came to tell you that this ain’t easy - we _both_ know it ain’t easy for them two, but we don’t give ourselves enough credit for how hard it is for _us,_ too.” Tommy says, and squeezes himself into the house so he can stare more intently at Ellie. She heaves a sigh and doesn’t - yet - kick him out. “We don’t give ourselves enough space to feel anything beyond the guilt and the frustration. I’ve been there, kiddo - see-sawing between _I fucked up so bad this ain’t ever gonna work_ and _fuck it, I’m out._ ”

Ellie shakes her head. “Yeah well - might be a see-saw for you, but I’m perfectly capable of thinking both of those thoughts at the same time, and I don’t see how this conversation is supposed to help.”

“You’ve got to let yourself feel a lot more’n those two things,” Tommy says. “All the shades between. That’s how you get through it, okay? Trust me. Don’t fight it, don’t leave. Just sit. Let it pass.” 

Ellie frowns at him a long time, before finally nodding. “Guess Maria took you back for a reason,” She says. “So now what? You gonna tell me to go apologise to her?” 

“Nah,” Tommy says, flicking his gaze to the windowsill full of potted weed plants. “No rush. Now we _sit_ , and you’re gonna roll me one of your Jackson-famous joints.” He shoots her a large grin and settles into her couch with a satisfied sigh.

Ellie socks him hard in the arm, but plods over to pluck a joint out from under its hiding spot in the cabinets and sticks it into her mouth. Tommy leans in gleefully, pulling out a lighter from his pocket. He helps her light it, and she takes a long puff before handing it over to him.

He takes a hit and blows the smoke out softly. She sits down next to him, and he passing the joint back to her. “We’re lucky bastards, you and I,” He says, patting her on the knee. “We still have living people to fight for.” 

Ellie turns this over in her head as she inhales, feels the burn go right down to her lungs. “Sure,” She says, shrugging. "Except dead people can't tell you they don't love you anymore." 

"Even an idiot like you should know that that woman still loves you to the ends of the earth and back," Tommy says, sticking his hand for the joint. Ellie rolls her eyes and takes another hit before passing it over, just to spite him. "Just give her time, she'll come to you when she's ready." He smiles at her and waves a hand at the guitar resting against the wall in front of them. "So- you gonna play your ol' uncle some songs? Dina says you’re still pretty good.” 

“ _Pretty good_?!” Ellie exclaims, outraged. “Fuck her. Anyway - you guys talk?”

"Yeah - after you left, well, she mostly came over to yell at me. But then," He shrugs, then grins wryly. "We became friends." 

Ellie shakes her head, then walks over to pick the guitar up. She settles back in next to Tommy and starts strumming out a song she’d used to sing with Joel all the time - mostly because it drove Tommy nuts.

“Not _this,_ ” He groans, but there’s a wistful look in his old, old eyes, and Ellie just smiles. “Yes, this,” She murmurs, beginning to sing. To her surprise, Tommy starts singing along too, and it makes her heart ache for what was and what could be. Tommy was no Joel, and she wasn't the kid she used to be. But Ellie was slowly coming to terms with that. 

_XIII._

_Take me on_  
(Take on me) 

Two days pass, and Ellie’s been debating whether or not to ask Maria how to find Dina. On the third day, though, Maria visits her in person. Her expression is grave, and she has a horse with her. Ellie's horse, to be exact. "There's news of a new outbreak to the East, just past the mountains," The older woman says, cutting straight to the chase. "Will you ride out with James and Scotty?"

And Ellie's first instinct is to say yes. But then she scratches at her chin and hesitates. She'd made a promise to try her best to stay alive, and that probably meant thinking harder about what she was willing to risk her life for, and why. Maria notices the pause, and lays a hand on her shoulder. "Ellie - you're the best I've got. I can't afford to lose you too. If you engage, I will murder you _myself_." She says. "Just find out what you can. Keep to the Southern front- do _not_ venture past the ridge." 

Ellie nods. She could do that. In the end, it had been a false alarm - just a small group of infected holed up in a cave high up in the mountains, and they’d taken care of the entire group easily. Still, it had been an eight hour journey there and back, and Ellie hadn’t seen _real_ fighting in almost two weeks. She's exhausted, and looking forward to changing out of her muddied clothes and taking a long hot bath.

Then she notices Dina sitting on the porch steps. “Oh.” She says, swallowing hard. “Hi.” 

Dina looks up, then stands. “Hey.” She bites her lip. “I just wanted to say that I've been thinking about... what you said, and-" She heaves a sigh. "You’re right. I have to start letting some things go, or this isn’t going to work.” 

Ellie nods, closing the gap between them. “I’m sorry I threw the whole your son / my son thing at you,” She says, rubbing the back of her neck. “I’m also sorry that I pressured you into- I dunno - forgiving me, or something. It won’t happen again.” 

“I don’t want to hurt you, Ellie,” She breathes, and Ellie just shakes her head. “Ditto,” She whispers back, and Dina pulls her into a long, tight embrace.

Ellie melts into her arms, and it feels so _right,_ so _true -_ that she wonders if maybe, just possibly, every broken part of herself might still fit into Dina’s. After a long silence elapses, Ellie cocks an eyebrow and murmurs, "This is very touching and all, but I do need to shower."

Dina laughs. "You really know how to ruin a mood," She says, grinning and pulling back just enough to raise a wan eyebrow. "And _yes_ , you do fucking stink. What were you out doing, patrolling a cesspool?” 

Ellie's snorting now too. "You fucking wiped your sweat on me right before you kissed me for the first time so, you really shouldn’t be complaining.” She pulls Dina in for another kiss, and fortunately for the two of them, Ellie's dirty clothes don’t stay on much longer.

When Dina finally falls back into the bed, sweaty and sated, she notices the little wooden box next to the bed. “This isn’t a ring, I hope,” She says, and Ellie snorts, coming over to wrap an arm around her. 

“Do you want it to be?” She asks, smirking.

There’s a look on Dina’s face that Ellie can’t quite read. She feels a little tingle go down her spine, and covers it up with a quick eye-roll. “It’s for JJ,” She says gently. Dina pries the lid open. A soft tinkling melody fills the room, and Dina lets the familiar song repeat three times, washing over her like baptismal water, before finally shutting the lid. 

“It’s beautiful,” Dina breathes, and wipes at her cheeks as surreptitiously as she can, but Ellie catches the movement. She punches Dina in the arm and murmurs, " _sap_ ," but curls an arm around her anyway, squeezing tight.

“Think he’ll take me on?” Ellie asks, smiling. 

“I _know_ he will," Dina sniffles, glaring a little at Ellie. " _That’s_ why I was worried."

“And are you still?” Ellie asks, voice so small and vulnerable that Dina has to press another kiss to her lips before answering.

“I’m working very, very hard not to be,” She promises, and Ellie nods. They listen to the song one last time together, before falling asleep in each other’s arms.

The next day, Ellie opens her eyes blearily to the sound of thunder. She scoots a little closer to Dina, winding her arms around the woman’s waist. Dina smiles sleepily and turns round to envelope Ellie in her arms, before falling promptly back asleep. Ellie savors the moment for a while, before prodding the sleeping woman gently in the ribs. “I can’t go make breakfast if you’re gonna trap me here like this,” She says, pressing a kiss to Dina's forehead.

“Screw that,” Dina says, eyes still closed as she snuggles closer to Ellie, tightening her grip around the other woman. “You always burn the eggs, and I can think of other things to have for breakfast.”

Ellie rolls her eyes, but she’s laughing now too, at the sheer audacity of the woman. She’s about to extricate herself from the tangle of limbs when Dina mumbles, “ _Stay,_ ” and Ellie does. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dina takes one more step into the flame. 
> 
> //
> 
> Dina doesn’t regret the sex, obviously - they’d been doing that for weeks now and if anything, the sex helped blunt the feeling of fear that came crawling up her throat each time she thought about the uncertainty that the future held. No, the sex had felt almost... inevitable - like the return of the tide, creeping inexorably upward toward the shore. The moment she’d laid eyes on Ellie again after those many months apart, desire had swiftly put down roots and lodged itself deep in her gut.
> 
> But Dina had not quite expected that the sweaty, heaving intimacy would come accompanied by quieter pockets of - tenderness? peace? contentment, perhaps? - pushing up like tiny mushrooms in the soft squelchy mud after a thunderstorm. Today, staying the night, felt… subtly momentous, as though they’d come to some sort of bridge, and Dina had crossed it.

\- The shape of a storm  
(damien jurado)

XIV.

 _If I showed up in the shape of a storm_ _  
_ _Would you recognize me?_

They both fall back asleep for who knows how much longer, until a loud rumble of thunder eases Dina out of the last lingering traces of her dream. She catches a brief flash of lightning that illuminates the sheets of rain falling outside. It’s a true summer thunderstorm - coming down so hard that Dina can’t make out anything but the adjacent row of buildings, the majestic backdrop of mountains on the horizon is half-obscured by a grey curtain. Dina’s already half-tempted to burrow back under the sheets and go back to sleep.

A quick glance at Ellie’s bedside alarm clock tells her it’s just past nine.

Ellie’s still fast asleep, her chest rising and falling slowly, the little puffs of her breath making the short strands of her choppily lopped-off fringe flutter over her eyes. The soft, dappled morning light, heavily filtered through the thick layer of storm clouds, casts dancing shadows across her face. Dina supposes that it was true that people looked younger, less haggard, in their sleep, because Ellie _does_ look younger than Dina's ever seen her. In fact, she doesn’t remember the last time she’s seen Ellie look so at peace, temporarily free from the hardness that's been etched into every dip and curve of her features.

After Ellie had left the house that day, Dina had given her a day to change her mind and turn back. Then the day had stretched into two, then three, and then a whole week went by. On the seventh day, though, Dina finally left the farmhouse behind. She’d told herself that if Ellie did come back, it would not be to them.

For JJ, she’d forced herself to keep going. She’d always been good at that - being strong for other people. For as long as there was somebody she had to be strong for, she’d put one dogged foot in front of the other until there was no strength left in her bones. 

At night though, her dreams did what her waking mind did not, _could_ not; they nursed a little bud of hope, kept it alive, through the frigid brutal winters and the long, grey spring; They dwelled in the memory of Ellie’s face, her touch, her voice, and Dina would wake with wetness streaked across her cheeks and a widening hole in her chest. 

Dina gazes a little longer at Ellie, marvelling at the fact that despite everything, Ellie was _here,_ alive, next to her. She’d pictured this scene - waking up to Ellie - at least a hundred times, in what seemed like all of its possible variations. Yet now that it was actually happening, the woman’s real, solid presence next to her seemed almost… _foreign_. 

As the rain continues to patter down on the roof above them, Dina watches as the micro-expressions flicker across Ellie’s face as she sleeps and wonders about the sort of dreams the woman was having these days. 

As though in response to the question, Ellie stirs, turning part-way to blink blearily at her. Her lips are already curling upwards. It’s a morning smile, soft and sweet and innocent, still free from the cold hard realities of the world; It’s the kind of smile that exists only in the brief, half-lucid seconds of waking from a good dream. Dina remembers it, from what seems like a different lifetime now, and it stirs something powerful in her. 

Ellie scooches over to rest her head on Dina’s chest and folds herself into the crook of the woman’s warm, solid body. Dina rolls her eyes, but brings her arm round to hold her, resting her chin on the top of Ellie’s head. “Didn’t we do enough cuddling last night?”

Ellie twists her neck up to meet Dina’s gaze. Her lips are curling upwards into a lopsided grin. “Oh, so there’s a quota now?” She reaches out to slip a piece of Dina’s dark curls behind her ears. “Your bed-head is every bit as spectacular as I remember it to be,” She says. 

Dina snorts and socks her in the arm. Then she smoothes her hand over the same spot, fingers leaving goosebumps as it ghosts up Ellie’s arm and traces the curve of the bare skin along her collarbones. Ellie stares at her fondly for a moment, before her nose twitches and she reaches out to catch Dina’s roaming fingers. “Tickles,” She says, smiling, and a couple of moments pass before she breaks the silence again. “D’you still have time for those burnt eggs I promised?” 

Dina rolls her eyes. “Are you being _this_ incompetent on purpose?” She flips herself over, props herself up on her elbows, and pins Ellie with a crooked grin. 

Ellie laughs. “That's not what I recall hearing last night,” She breathes, tilting her chin upward so her nose brushes against Dina’s, her lips tantalisingly close. 

Dina is unable to stop her gaze from flicking down to Ellie’s lips. It’s not so much a conscious decision as an involuntary reaction to Ellie’s proximity. Dina soon gives in to the rapidly-deepening ache in her chest, leaning down to press her lips to Ellie’s widening smirk. Ellie tips her head back to allow the kiss to deepen, hands already tangled in Dina’s hair as she urges the woman closer. 

They pull apart seconds later, breaths a little ragged. “I’ll have the eggs if you cook as well as you kiss,” Dina says, finally responding to Ellie’s initial question. 

“I’ll go get started then. Won’t be _too_ hard to score a solid six on some scrambled eggs.” Ellie says, with a hint of teasing in her tone. 

Dina laughs, remembering their first kiss at the church and then the conversation they’d had in Eugene’s hideout. Ellie smiles a little at the sound before rolling off the bed. She pulls on a clean-ish shirt from the heap in her closet and pads out into the kitchen. 

Dina gets out of bed too and rummages around the pile of discarded clothes by the foot of the bed. She puts her pants on, thinking about the complex bag of emotions that came with collecting and pulling on one’s sweat-crusted clothes the morning after. It wasn’t necessarily _unpleasant,_ but it did serve as a very tangible reminder of what had happened, opening up the opportunity for regret to set in with the bright harsh light of day. 

Dina doesn’t regret the sex, obviously - they’d been doing that for weeks now and if anything, the sex helped blunt the feeling of fear that came crawling up her throat each time she thought about the uncertainty that the future held. No, the sex had felt almost... _inevitable_ \- like the return of the tide, creeping inexorably upward toward the shore. The moment she’d laid eyes on Ellie again after those many months apart, desire had swiftly put down roots and lodged itself deep in her gut.

But Dina had not quite expected that the sweaty, heaving intimacy would come accompanied by quieter pockets of - tenderness? peace? contentment, perhaps? - pushing up like tiny mushrooms in the soft squelchy mud after a thunderstorm. Today, staying the night, felt… subtly momentous, as though they’d come to some sort of bridge, and Dina had crossed it. 

They’d crossed that bridge before, of course, but this second time around felt different, somehow. The first had been an exhilarating, uncontrolled, skidding, breathless, whirling affair - Dina hadn’t had to second-guess anything, hadn’t had time even to doubt herself; She’d just hurled herself off the cliff and expected Ellie to catch her. 

This time, drifting back toward the territory of unspoken togetherness had been a slower, more halting process, plagued with old wounds that oozed with fresh doubts. And yet, each step forward felt _deliberate_ , a gift, a sacrifice, an expression of hope. 

Perhaps she should have expected that one step would lead to the other. Perhaps she should have known that she’d be walking right back into the jaws of hell with her eyes wide open. Perhaps that had been just as inevitable as the sex. Dina wonders if thinking of it that way absolved her of the need for regret. After all, did it really make sense to regret something you saw coming from many miles away and did nothing to avoid?

Still - what did it say about their relationship, Dina wondered, that she sometimes thought of Ellie as a five-ton truck barrelling down the highway toward her?

_XV._

_Strange as it seems_ _  
_ _I have known you before_ _  
_ _But it was not our time yet_

Shaking her head in an attempt to push the melodramatic morning-after thoughts out of her mind, Dina heads out into the tiny bathroom. Ellie, standing by the stove, glances over her shoulder at her. “There’s an extra toothbrush in the box on top of the toilet,” She tells Dina.

The space is so small that Dina has to sit herself on the toilet seat in order to close the door behind her. The 4ft x 4ft area consisted of a spray nozzle hanging on the wall, a small cracked mirror right below it, a shelf below that holding a single toilet roll and a mug that read: “ _World’s greatest_ ~~_farter_~~ _father_ ”. Dina’s guessing it’s something Ellie had once bought for Joel, or then again - perhaps it had just been something she’d scavenged after returning to Jackson. Inside, there was a single frayed toothbrush and wrinkled toothpaste tube.

Dina has been through her fair share of terrible accommodation. After her mother had died, she’d lived on the streets for a year with her sister, occasionally putting up in a series of abandoned shacks. This, though, was probably the most spartan place she’s ever seen anyone live in out of _choice_ , almost as though Ellie had simply forgotten what 'home' meant. 

“Don’t you know it’s bad luck to have a cracked mirror?” She calls out.

“Guess that’s why its previous owners threw it out,” comes Ellie’s muffled voice, clearly unperturbed. “I rescued it.”

Shaking her head, Dina sprays at her face with the nozzle, squeezing her eyes shut as the strong (and surprisingly cold) pelt of water shoots out.

Once she’s done washing up as best she can given the woeful circumstances, Dina dries herself off with her shirt sleeve, and proceeds to rummage around for the extra toothbrush Ellie had mentioned. 

The small cardboard box holds a random assortment of things. Dina is suddenly reminded of the house-keeping quibbles they’d had, back in the farmhouse days. Ellie had constantly insisted that ensuring that things could not be seen at first-glance counted as packing, and “anything that fits” was a perfectly sound organisational principle when it came to putting things in boxes. That principle clearly applied for this particular box. 

Dina finally gets a hold of the toothbrush and is about to put the lid back on when some faded polaroids catch her eye. There’s one of a young Ellie and Joel, posing in front of a motorcycle that belonged to neither of them; Another one of Ellie, Dina, and JJ sitting on the back porch of their house, and right at the bottom of the stack, one of Ellie and Dina, sixteen, maybe seventeen, their laughing faces blurry as they wrestle for control of the camera. It had been taken around that time that she’d had her first kiss with Jesse _,_ and Ellie very quickly became her best friend - Jesse’s too - and the three of them had been inseparable. 

The rush of bittersweet memories is swiftly accompanied by a hot twinge in her eyes, and soon finds herself blinking back the moisture collecting between her lashes.

She doesn’t think she had any idea back then that she’d be standing here today, at twenty two, in Ellie’s tiny box of a bathroom, her kid playing happily at Jesse’s parents’ place. She lifts her chin and stares up at her reflection in the mirror. Would she have done it all the same if she knew this would be where she’d end up? 

There’s no answer to that, she knows. Instead, there’s a soft knock, and Dina straightens, looking around. “Hey, you ok back there?” Ellie asks from behind the door. 

Dina pulls open the door and sticks the toothbrush into her mouth as a plausible decoy. “M’ fine,” She says. “How’re the eggs going?”

Ellie lifts her shoulders in a loose shrug. “Edible, by the loosest of definitions.” Her gaze shifts to the open box behind Dina, and her expression immediately softens. “I see you found the poop box,” She says, with a measured casualness to her tone. 

Dina barks out a laugh. “What the hell is a poop box?” She asks, words slightly garbled as she attempts to talk around the brush in her mouth. 

Ellie grins a little. “Organising principle: Things that keep me entertained while pooping,” She says, also referencing their farmhouse squabbles. 

Dina lifts an eyebrow. “Glad to know that those pictures of us are being put to _such_ good use,” She says, bending over to spit the toothpaste right into the toilet. She rinses her mouth out with the spray nozzle. They make their way into the kitchen, and Dina settles on one of the kitchen stools.

Dina’s hungrier than she’d first realized, and they soon make quick work of the eggs, bacon and toast that Ellie has set out for the both of them. “That was possibly one rung above ‘edible’,” Dina concedes, as she heads over to the sink to do the washing up. 

“Really? So like, intensely edible? Supremely edible? _Spectacularly_ edible?” Ellie asks, taking her place beside Dina to help with the rinsing. 

Dina passes over the soaped-up pan. “I think we’ll stick with _‘surprisingly’_ edible for now,” She says, lips curling up into a smile. Dina finishes up the rinsing, drying her hands off on her pants. “Well - I’ll better be off." She rocks back on her heels to face Ellie. "Jesse’s parents are probably wondering when I’m going to get back and take JJ off their hands.”

“Alright,” Ellie says, trying not to sound too disappointed. “It’s nice that they’re helping with him.” 

Dina nods, noting the careful neutrality in Ellie’s tone. She can’t help but wonder briefly what Ellie made of the whole situation - the indelible threads that linked them to each other and to Jesse, to his parents, to his son - _their_ son. 

The older Dina got, the more she felt as though there _was_ no real line between the dead and the living, the past and the present - they were just opposite sides of the same damn coin. Jesse had once compared it to the delicate translucent strings that stretched across two pieces of a cleaved lotus root - separate, but always inextricably linked. She’d teased him then about being a poet at heart, and he’d shrugged. “It’s just a saying, in Mandarin.” 

“They offered to let me stay with them, after… after I left the farmhouse,” Dina says eventually, breaking the silence. 

Ellie lifts an eyebrow, and Dina sees the hesitation flicker in her eyes. “I said no,” She answers, so Ellie doesn’t have to ask. “Thought it was a little too much, living with your dead ex’s parents - that’s a level of weird I haven’t stooped to - _yet,_ at least.” 

Dina’s tone is light, but Ellie’s reminded once again that she wasn’t the only one living with ghosts of her past. “So he sleeps through the night now?” She asks, pivoting slightly. 

Dina’s taken slightly by surprise - Ellie has never initiated conversation about JJ before - but she finds that it’s not exactly unwelcome. “Yeah, mostly,” She says. “Especially if we do our best to tire him out in the daytime.” 

“I should take notes,” Ellie says. “Well - I mean, for myself," She clarifies. "Not for a newborn I’ve somehow managed to rustle up in the past few months.”

Dina laughs. “Yeah, I got that,” She says, leaning forward slightly. There’s a whiff of Ellie’s clean, strong smell, like wood shavings and soap. “Are you still having those nightmares?” _Maybe new ones,_ she thinks, trying very hard not to lose herself in the hot, heavy depths of Ellie’s gaze. 

“I dream of you,” Ellie says softly. “Every night.”

“So. Definitely nightmares,” Dina jokes. 

Ellie laughs, then steps in. The air begins to crackle between them. “Actually, it’s probably the only thing that keeps the nightmares at bay,” She admits, almost to herself than to Dina. A beat passes, before Dina reaches out to cup her hands around Ellie’s face. Then Ellie feels soft, warm lips envelope hers, and - very briefly - there’s an electrifying slip of the tongue before Dina steps back again, leaving an all-too-conspicuous vacuum in the space she’d occupied just seconds before. 

Ellie’s body follows, re-occupying the gap, unwilling to give up Dina’s warm presence just yet. Resting her forehead on Dina’s, she curls both arms snugly around the woman’s waist and just - breathes, enjoying the solidness of Dina’s body leaning against hers. 

Finally, when she looks up, Dina’s staring down at her with an expression that Ellie cannot quite read. It soon disappears, replaced by one of bemused brusqueness as Dina pats at Ellie’s hands on her waist. “Alright, you’re really going to have to let me go now, or Robin and Yao will never agree to let JJ stay overnight again.”

Ellie reluctantly releases her grip on the other woman. "Crap, no more night-time booty calls?" She pretends to look horrified.

Dina socks her in the arm but sniggers anyway.

Ellie figures she also has errands to run for Maria, and should probably get started on them, but she probably wouldn’t have minded putting it off the entire day if Dina didn’t have to leave. “Can I ask you something?” She asks.

Dina doesn’t answer, just waves her hand vaguely between them. Ellie takes it as a _go-ahead._ “Are you still living in Jackson?” 

Such a long silence passes that Ellie thinks maybe she won't get an answer after all, but then Dina says - “I live near the lab in Wilson. If you think there’s a more god-awful shithole than Jackson,” She huffs out a laugh. “Think again.”

“I don’t think Jackson’s a shithole,” Ellie says, lips curling up into a slightly lopsided smile as she counts off her three-remaining fingers. “Property prices are dirt cheap, it’s got _quality_ family-friendly community spaces like the Tipsy Bison, and-” she wiggles the last finger. “It’s where I met you.” 

Dina rolls her eyes and pushes Ellie toward the door. “You might be immune to the brain disease, but I happen to be immune to-” she waves her hand at Ellie- “Whatever it is that you think you’re doing.” 

Ellie laughs “We both know that’s not true,” She says, winking. 

Dina doesn’t dignify that with a response - just grunts and pulls her boots on. “Get a water heater and a proper shower, will you?” She says. “I don’t know how you survived through the winter without developing some sort of disease.” 

Ellie shrugs, smirking. “I’m probably immune to those, too.” 

“Well, _I’m_ not,” Dina says, narrowing her eyes at Ellie. 

Ellie lifts an eyebrow and crosses her arms, a widening smirk playing on her lips. “Does this mean this is going to be a regular thing now? You staying over?” She pulls the door open for Dina and they both step out onto the porch. The storm has subsided into a light drizzle. 

Dina turns and pushes Ellie gently back into the house. “Definitely _not_ if I have to hose myself down with freezing cold water in the morning,” She repeats, before sauntering off the path toward main street. Ellie watches till the woman disappears into her car, her smirk softening gradually into a large loopy grin. 

_XV._

_If I knew how I would make myself known_ _  
_ _And cause the sky to open_

About a week later, Dina is back in Jackson after work, collecting JJ from Jesse’s parents. Things had gotten busy at the lab again lately, picking up steam after they’d managed to recover or retrace most of their research following the break-in by the renegade group many months ago now. 

Robin and Yao, Jesse’s parents, always invited her to stay for dinner, and this time she’d agreed. So she leaves the lab a little earlier than usual, and drops by the store to get their favourite brand of rice wine. There may not be much in Wilson, Wyoming, but they _did_ have a world-class Wine & Liquor store. Dina half suspects the dude who ran the store had his own sketchy inter-continental alcoholic distribution network, and it didn’t help that he was also smarmy as fuck. But in any case, the look on Robin’s face when she presents her with the bottle is well worth the trouble. 

The smell of cooking hits Dina instantly as she steps in. Yao looks up from the entryway to the kitchen and catches her expression, laughing. “You been feeding yourself properly?” He asks, walking over with a tray of steamed fish, simmering in a clear broth alongside ginger, tomatoes, tofu, chillies and spring onion. 

“Nothing would be proper compared to _this,_ ” Dina tells him, very seriously, and he laughs. Dina’s about to follow him back into the kitchen when JJ spots Dina from the living room couch and lets out a gurgle of excitement, lifting his arms up to be picked up. She does, hugging him tight and breathing in his fresh baby smell. “How you doin’, little buddy?” She asks, ruffling the little tufts of hair on his head. 

He makes a series of unintelligible sounds, ending with a wide, toothy, very-satisfied grin. Dina chuckles and bumps her nose against his. “Sounds like you’re doing good.” She says to him, before carrying him over to Robin, who’s setting the cutlery on the dining table. She tucks him into the high-chair that they’ve permanently set up by the table. “Thanks for watching him today,” Dina says, smiling up at the older woman. “You’re a life-savior.”

“Naw,” Robin waves a hand at Dina. “Thanks for letting us have him. Much better entertainment than watching TV.” 

“Well, then, thanks for letting us stay for dinner,” Dina insists. Yao bustles back out of the kitchen with another dish - green vegetables with century eggs, and sets it proudly on the table. This time, Dina follows him back to the kitchen and helps ladle the pork and winter melon soup into four small bowls. 

“Very good for the summer,” Yao informs her, as they carry the steaming soup into the dining room. “Cooling. Gets rid of the body’s heat.” 

She sits down at the table next to JJ and finds herself transported to an earlier, simpler time - staying for dinner after hanging out with Jesse all day, pretending to do ‘homework’. Jesse had been the first one to introduce the concept of ‘heaty’ and ‘cooling’ foods. It had been winter, and she’d complained about the cold, and he’d pointed to the cabbage soup she’d made for herself. “Nobody eats a shit ton of _cabbage_ in the dead of winter and expects to be warm,” He says, lifting a finger. “Cabbage is a cooling food.” 

“What the heck is a ‘cooling’ food?” She asks, scrunching up her nose. “This is like, literally boiling.”

“It’s like, a food that cools the body down,” He explains, scrunching his nose as he tries to recall the finer details. “As opposed to 'heaty' foods that trap heat, or something…” He catches Dina’s skeptical expression. “Don’t look at me like that! My parents nag me about this theory all the time! Take it up with _them,_ if you don’t believe me.” 

The memory hits her harder than she'd expected. She had always been adept at squashing emotions like that down - it was how she’d coped, more so after Ellie had left. But lately, ever since Ellie had returned, she was finding it harder and harder to just - _operate - exist_ without feeling, without thinking, without being _human._ It was as though summer - warmth - had arrived, and hibernating was no longer an option. 

As though to jolt her out of her haze of memories, there’s a sudden knock on the door. Robin pauses in the middle of an animated conversation about the newest Taiwanese drama she’d dug out of the attic, where she kept a vast collection of VHR tapes. She scrunches up her face in confusion, exchanging glances with Yao, who looks back blankly at her, before realization - and panic - dawns on his face. 

“Oh _shit_ ,” He says, and Dina raises an eyebrow. He wasn’t one to curse, ordinarily, and certainly hadn’t seemed like the type to condone cussing in front of JJ who gurgles excitedly in response. Dina watches in amusement as Yao makes some frantic hand gestures at his wife, eyes bugging out with the effort of getting some message across to her without… Dina pauses, suddenly realizing that _she_ was probably the one they clearly wanted to keep in the dark about - whatever it was that was happening. She looks at Yao, then Robin - who still looks confused.

Dina lifts an eyebrow, starting to get up. “Is there something you need to attend to? I can-”

“No _, no_ , that won’t be necessary,” Yao squeaks, his voice three octaves higher than usual. He motions for her to sit down, then rushes toward the door, still gesticulating at Robin. 

The woman finally gets where this is all going, and turns to Dina. “Oh.” She says, with far less fan-fare than her husband. "We forgot." Before she's able to give Dina any elaboration beyond that, Yao pulls the door open a crack and scutters out. 

Yao makes a valiant attempt to block Ellie’s view of the interior of the house, but his lean frame does not cover much.

It's Ellie, of course. Well, Dina thinks. That's all the elaboration she needs. 

Dina can vaguely hear Yao chattering to distract her, but when their gazes meet from across the length of the living room, time seems to slow down and grind to a halt. 

From her seat, she has an almost-complete view of the woman, with two giant bags of soil in her hands and a garden rake slung on her right shoulder. She’s wearing honest-to-god overalls over a checkered shirt, her jeans tucked loosely into brown farm-hand boots. If the entire situation weren’t so surprising, Dina might be tempted to burst out laughing at just how terribly _gay_ the woman looked. 

_XVI._

_And strange as it seems, I once stood at your door_ _  
_ _Yet I knew not what your name was_

Ellie’s hands grow slack, and the bags of fertilizer hit the floor with a heavy thud. She has no idea what Yao is saying to her, and honestly there’s nothing left in her brain apart from a loud ringing and the repeated, looping memory of JJ’s face, seared into her mind’s eye from the last time she’d seen him. 

He’s turned away from her - facing the table, but she knows it’s him, can faintly hear the little gurgling sounds of excitement he’s making as he chews. Sounds that she hasn’t heard in almost a year now. Her eyes fly to him, heart spiking and then flatlining.

Every fiber of her body feels like it has been set on fire with the effort of keeping herself from flying up the porch steps toward him, if only just for a glimpse of his face. Selfishly, she wills him to turn around, to see her - but then, guilty at having had the thought, she pries her eyes from his back and turns back to Dina, then finally to Yao. “Um- you told me to drop off the garden stuff on Thursday?” She falters. “It - it _is_ Thursday, right?” 

“Yes, yes, it is,” He says, still panicking as he eyes Dina, who’s still sitting stock-still at the table, her features frozen. “We’re so sorry, we forgot that you two were - that, well, um-”

Ellie blinks, and takes a step back. “I can just… I can leave,” She chokes out finally, unable to tear her eyes from Dina. It sends a jolt of pain through her, just to say those words. She waits, and there is still nothing from Dina. She allows the weighty silence to stretch on for one, then two, then three seconds, before curling her hands into fists. 

Dina sees her fingers shake slightly as she bends to pick the bags of soil up again. “I’ll just go,” She says, with much more certainty. “I’ll leave the fertilizer by the garage.” 

Yao follows her, shutting his front door behind him. Ellie doesn’t look at him - barely even allows him to catch up - just dumps the bags by the side of the garage and then marches down toward the street. But the tears catch up with her, swift and heavy like a monsoon thunderstorm, and she’s soon doubled over on the pavement, heaving out shuddering breaths. Yao lifts a hand and places it - uncertainly - on her back. “I’m _so_ sorry, Ellie. I really am. It slipped our mind, I’m-” 

Ellie grabs his hand. “Please don’t,” She says, brokenly. She doesn’t think she can stand to hear another apology from the man. A man who had lost his son, because of her, and held no grudges; a man who took care of Dina and JJ like they were his own. 

Yao sighs and stands beside her, offering her a handkerchief. Ellie laughs wetly, but accepts it and wipes the moisture from her cheeks. “You’re a dying breed,” She says. “Who even carries this sort of thing anymore?

“Mostly I use it for when I’m out in the forest and there’s no toilet paper,” He says, with a completely straight face. “Very useful.”

She laughs again and shoves him. “I swear to god, Yao, if you’re not kidding…”

He cracks a smile, crow’s-feet wrinkles forming around his eyes. “You’ll never know.” 

Suddenly, there’s the sound of the front door being pulled open, and light footsteps pattering slowly down toward the. 

Yao turns quickly. Ellie does so much more slowly, but she still ends up face-to-face with Dina anyway. The woman stands in front of them, barefoot, expression inscrutable. 

“I’ll uh- I’ll leave you two to it,” Yao says, looking at Dina, then Ellie. “If I don’t see you again tonight, I’ll see you tomorrow evening?” 

Ellie nods at him. “Tomorrow evening’s fine,” She confirms, as evenly as she can. 

He shoots her a final look of - encouragement? - and heads back into the house. On the way past Dina, he murmurs in a low voice, for her ears only, "We're fine if you invite her in, yeah? More'n enough food. Your call." 

Dina nods mutely, and Yao pats her on the back. The door clicks shut behind him, and Dina turns back to Ellie. She's studying Dina quietly, taking in the woman's red-rimmed eyes and general posture of uneasiness. 

Ellie puts on as brave of an expression as she can muster. “Look - Dina - it’s fine.” She says, and tries for a smile. “Go on back in, I'm sure the food’s getting cold.”

There’s a long, pregnant pause, and Ellie’s about to turn and leave when Dina reaches out to catch her hand. Then she slowly tugs her toward her. “Come in,” She says softly, and Ellie’s heart nearly stops. “They've prepared enough food for twenty people. You know how they like to stuff people fit to bursting.” Ellie hears the brittle fragility hidden in the woman’s light tone. 

A long moment elapses, and Dina holds her gaze, offer still hanging in the air between them. “No,” Ellie decides eventually. “Not like this,” She says, turning her palm over so that it faces skyward, with Dina’s hand on top. She cups her other hand on top and squeezes, giving the woman a small tight smile. “We said it would be your decision, and this - this is an accident, not a decision.” 

Dina opens her mouth, then shuts it again, blinking hard. She pulls Ellie close and wraps her arms around her, allowing the night to envelope them both under a blanket of stars. Ellie rests her forehead on Dina’s, and their tears roll slowly down their cheeks toward each other, like separate estuaries making their way to the sea. Ellie reaches out and brings Yao’s handkerchief gently across Dina’s cheek. 

“I heard what Yao said about what he uses this thing for,” Dina accuses. 

“Just sharing the misery,” Ellie says, and they both laugh wetly, sniffling slightly.

Dina stares at her a long time, a vein in her temple throbbing slightly. “Come over to my place,” She says finally, voice taking on a solid certainty that fills Ellie with hope. “Next Saturday?” 

A vein in Ellie’s temple jumps. “You sure?” She asks, swallowing hard. 

Dina gives her another tight squeeze before letting go. “Yes, I’m sure,” She says. “Wilson. The green house along the main street. You won’t miss it.”

“Okay,” Ellie says, already lightheaded from the surge of dizzying excitement. She’d finally see him again. _Oh_ _my god,_ she thinks, again and again, an absurdly wide grin lighting up her entire face - heck, her entire soul. Dina gives her a final backward glance before heading back into the house, pulling the door shut behind her. 

Ellie stares at the door a long time, ragged breaths finally evening out. She walks back home with only one thing - JJ’s face as she last remembered him, the night she’d snuck into his room to kiss him on the forehead one last time before she’d left for Santa Barbara - on her mind. 

...

Back inside, Robin places a large portion of fish into Dina’s bowl, then blows on a spoonful of soup for JJ. 

“What’s that proverb,” Dina blurts suddenly, “You know, the one about the threads between the pieces of a lotus root after it’s been cut?” 

Robin blinks at Dina, surprised. “ _ǒu duàn sī lián,_ ” She says, a slow smile spreading across her weathered features. Immediately, Dina recalls Jesse saying it, with the same lilting tones. “Lovers part, but still yearn for each other. Man longs for his hometown. The past never lets go of the present.” The older woman raises a wry eyebrow at Dina. “You got that from a fortune cookie?” 

Dina gives her a crooked half-smile. “Jesse, actually,” She says. 

The woman lets out a little chuckle, but Dina has never seen her eyes look so sad. “So that son of mine _did_ pick up a couple phrases,” She says, shaking her head. “To impress the ladies, I guess?” 

Dina smiles and places her hand over the older woman’s, rough and craggy from a life of hard work. "That he did," She murmurs, and Robin squeezes her hand gently.

It reminds Dina of her teenage years, sitting at the table talking crap with Jesse and his parents- JJ in the seat next to hers instead of Jesse served as a stark reminder of how much had changed since then, but still - other things hadn't changed at all: Yao had simply refused to age, his face completely smooth and his figure still lean and his gait springy, like that of a young man’s; the house looked the same, just the way Robin liked it; and most of all, the dishes bore the familiar tastes of beloved recipes, lovingly passed on from generation to generation. 

For the first time in many months, the past feels to Dina less like a phantom pain and more like a warm and cosy blanket, spread snugly over the four of them as they eat and laugh and chat around the table.

XVII. 

_If I go sailing into the unknown_ _  
_ _What are my chances of ever reaching your shore?_

On Saturday, Ellie finally gives up on pacing around her tiny apartment and decides to head out to her car. She’s fidgety the entire way over, jabbing at the buttons on the radio before eventually shutting it off completely. She arrives at Dina’s house almost forty minutes too early, a result of both leaving her house way too early because she didn’t want to be late and because she couldn’t stand another minute trying to convince herself to wait just a little longer. 

She’s forty minutes early, though, which is pretty ridiculous even for her - so she ends up cruising around the little town for a while, passing the green house along main street three times before finally, on the fourth loop, she spots a familiar figure leaning on the porch frame. 

It’s Dina, and she’s smirking. Ellie, already blushing slightly, slows to a halt along the street. Dina jogs down the stairs, and Ellie rolls down the window.

“Got a lot of extra gas to burn?” A crooked grin is playing on Dina’s lips.

Ellie lifts her chin defiantly as she shuts off the engine. “I was familiarising myself with the town." 

“Right. Took you three runs? There’s like, _maybe_ twenty buildings in this town,” Dina teases.

Ellie sighs and climbs out of the car. Barely a minute in, and she was already getting shit from Dina. “I was nervous before, but now I’m just wondering what I can do to wipe that damn smirk off your face,” She says, shutting the car door behind her. 

Dina’s smirk only widens. “Glad to be of help,” She says, leading Ellie to the front door. “So, what’ve you come up with on the smirk-wiping front?” 

“I've been told kissing works,” Ellie muses, “In _your_ case, though, I'm pretty sure it’ll only make things worse."

Dina’s eyes gleam with amusement. “Don't diss it till you try it."

"I've tried it many times, Dina," Ellie chides, rolling her eyes.

Dina laughs a little and winks at her, climbing up the porch steps toward her front door. Her hand pauses on the door handle, expression softening. "Ready?" She asks, cocking her chin at Ellie. 

Ellie nods, but once she gets a glimpse of the interior of the house, her heart rate spikes and she suddenly reaches out to catch Dina's hand. Dina stills, and Ellie lets out a deep shaky breath. A flicker of understanding passes across Dina's features, before Ellie leans in to kiss her. That part, Dina’s clearly not expecting. 

She kisses back eagerly anyway, opening her mouth to give Ellie’s tongue fuller, richer access; their bodies thud against the front wall of the house and Dina’s breathing deepens. 

When they break apart, Dina is - as Ellie had expected - smirking widely. “Thought you said it was only going to make things worse," She says, eyes twinkling. 

“Needed a good luck kiss,” Ellie mumbles, wiping her slightly-damp hands on her jeans before squaring up against the door once more. Dina feels a sudden surge of tenderness for the woman. They walk into the house together, hand-in-hand. 

Jesse’s sprawled on the floor, colored crayons and papers splayed all around him. He’s clutching a black one in his pudgy fingers and smearing it across the paper in what appears to be deep concentration. Ellie’s heart jumps to her throat, and she swallows hard. She takes a few faltering steps toward him, almost trembling with anticipation. 

Then - it happens - JJ squirms around, momentarily distracted from his art, and catches sight of her. He blinks, eyebrows drawing close together in a frown. Then he jerks back to look at Dina briefly, as though for support, and for a moment, it looks as though he might panic. Ellie freezes, already beginning to talk herself through the possibility that he didn’t remember her - then the expression on his face gives way to a pure, giddy excitement. “E!” He squeals, clambering up to his feet. 

Ellie watches with a sting in her eyes almost unable to believe her eyes, as he waddles excitedly toward her. She rushes to close the rest of the distance between them and skids to her knees in front of him, wrapping him in a tight embrace. She presses her nose into his already-thickening mop of unruly black hair - and breathes in his smell. It’s everything she’s remembered, and so much more. 

“JJ,” Is all she manages to grit out, throat thick with emotion. 

He peers up at her with wide brown eyes. “Where E go?” He asks, a hint of accusation in his tone. “E got lost?” Ellie chokes out a laugh-sob in response. 

“You can say that,” She says finally, after a long silence, and ruffles his hair. He frowns at her for a while, before seeming finally to accept the answer. He squirms round and points to something on the ground.

Dina watches them, feeling as though her entire heart has been wrenched out of her chest. She feels as though she’s stepped off a cliff, and instead of air, her feet find - miraculously, _impossibly_ \- solid earth beneath.

Ellie releases him, and he squirms round to appraise the papers on the ground, before selecting one in particular. He sticks it under her nose. “She!” He says, and Ellie’s confused until she sees the jagged circles he’s drawn on a patch of green. “Sheep?” She asks, laughing, and he nods vigorously. “E!” He tells her, jabbing at another jagged blob on the paper. 

Ellie looks down at the little oval drawn next to the sheep, knowing it’s meant to be her. “Feeding them, huh,” She says, trying to quash down the sudden stab of - something - _longing?_ in her chest. For simpler times. Though - had it truly been simpler? She peers down at the paper and points at another circle next to her. “That you?”

He shakes his head. “Mama,” He tells her, and Ellie glances briefly at Dina, who’s still standing quietly in front of them. She takes a couple steps toward Ellie, smiling wryly. “You wouldn’t believe how many chocolate puddings it took me to bribe that word out of him.” She shakes her head. “And he learnt to say Ya-ya all on his own, apparently. Talk about favoritism,” She complains, sticking her tongue out at her son, who sticks his tongue back out at her. 

Ellie snorts out a laugh. “Yao’s probably just bullshitting you. Who knows what _other_ perks this lil’ guy’s been receiving, ey?” She says, grinning at him. He beams back at her and gurgles something indistinguishable, leaning back on his haunches looking utterly content with life. That is, until he topples over and has to be rescued by Dina, who sits down next to Ellie and props JJ up against her knee. 

Ellie stares at the drawing with the sheep and her and Dina for a while longer, feeling a rising surge of nostalgia that’s quelled only when JJ grabs her hand and stuffs a crayon into it authoritatively. He jabs at the paper and babbles at her. Obediently, she spreads herself out on the floor, lying on her belly as he hands her a piece of paper - already with a bunch of scribbles on it. She props her head up on her left hand and begins to draw. JJ peers at it for a while, before scooting beside her, nuzzling into her side, and joins in on the same sheet. Dina watches them, matching expressions of concentration - both with tongues sticking out, a small middle-crease between their eyebrows - and feels a strange mixture of happiness and peace. 

JJ pokes her in the rib a couple of seconds later. She stares down at the finished work clutched in his meaty fists and lets out a loud guffaw. It’s definitely her, a surprisingly good likeness, in fact - Ellie’s strokes curving and adapting to JJ’s bold squiggles, incorporating them and using them to create movement and tone as best she can. A valiant attempt on Ellie’s part, certainly. 

“I see you’ve got my nose and coloration right,” She says, grinning at the couple of over-enthusiastic strokes of purple JJ had added to the middle of the face, which Ellie had attempted to blend into a semi-acceptable nose. 

Ellie laughs. “Yup, this is after you said some smart-ass bullshit and got punched in the nose by some thug,” She studies the drawing with some pride. “Pretty accurate, I’d say.” She reaches out to guide JJ into giving her his first fist-bump.

Dina rolls her eyes, unable to deny that she’d spent at least a couple of afternoons lying on Ellie’s living room couch - well, Joel’s living room couch - with her head tipped up to the ceiling, melodramatically cursing her inability to back down from an ill-advised fight. Ellie seemed to have a radar for such things - always seemed to materialise at any sign of trouble, and drag her home to be patched up. Dina would let her, mostly because Ellie always gave her a cool beer from Joel’s badly hidden stash along with the bag of ice for her bruises. If she were being honest though, it probably also had something to do with wanting Ellie’s full attention - likes the tingling heat she feels when Ellie studies her intently for injuries. 

“Where’s it this time,” Ellie had asked one time, finding no sign of bruising on Dina’s face and arms.

Dina had yanked her shirt up to reveal a nasty black-blue patch already forming on her ribs, and there had been a quick intake of breath from the other teenager - an… interesting reaction. When she turned a charged, curious gaze to Ellie, the girl had cleared her throat and looked away, blushing.

That had been the first time she’d suspected maybe Ellie was attracted to her. 

The first time she’d realized that, well, maybe that wasn’t something she’d be opposed to, either. 

She hadn’t noticed it at first, hadn’t recognised it for what it was, because it felt so different from being with _Jesse_ . It was… a lot less _obvious -_ felt less like a slow, sure, plodding path forward, and more like a raging, swirling river that ran deep and swift, both cold and hot at once, building, and building, and building till it finally flooded its way to the surface.

Dina hadn’t followed through then. They were both too young, too afraid of ruining the friendship they had, and perhaps there had also been some part of her that had been swept up by Jesse and his certainty that they’d get married someday. 

Dina’s brought back to the present by Ellie’s voice, joking around with JJ. He’s showcasing some of his other works to her, including one with multi-colored scribbles of different sizes. 

Ellie waves a hand at the drawing, casting a quizzical sidelong glance at Dina. “Interpretation?”

Dina peers closely at the blobs and takes a stab at it. “It’s supposed to be me and Robin and Yao, I think,” She guesses.

JJ nods proudly at her and jabs at a small blue object. “Ya-ya,” He confirms. 

Dina snorts and nods at him. “Even JJ knows everything in that man’s wardrobe’s blue.” 

Ellie frowns at the drawing. “Apparently Robin’s the size of king-kong compared to the rest of you.”

“Sure feels like that sometimes,” Dina laughs. "That woman's a real tank." 

They play with JJ the entire afternoon. Ellie’s not an idiot, and tips more toward cynical than naive, all things considered. She knows she’s in for an uphill battle - knows it won’t always be this easy, but something about the three of them together, lying on the living room floor, messing about, makes her more sure than ever before that this is what she wants to do for the rest of her life, if the universe allows her to. 

Being with him - with Dina - felt so _right,_ so natural - everything clicking back into place - that Ellie is tempted to pretend that the past few months had not happened. A wormhole seemed to have opened up in the vast yawning space-fabric of the universe - with JJ extending a lifeline across the chasm of the past year - collapsing linear past and present and future-time to spit Ellie right out at the destination she'd always intended to arrive at. 

Dina feels it too - had a whole year really passed since Ellie had left for Santa Barbara? It somehow feels simultaneously like a split-second and an entire lifetime had gone by. 

She feels the a warmth bloom in her chest as she watches them together and marvels at the fact that somehow, against all odds, they had all found their way back to each other. Dina knows better than to think of it as a happy ending, though - she knows only too well that there’s no such thing, and simply wonders how long their paths would run parallel to each other before diverging. 

Perhaps this was the cross that all survivors had to bear, she thinks - the inability to believe that one's happiness would last: Dina's a dreamer though, and even as she waits for the other shoe to drop, she prays that it never will.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wanted to have a slightly more dina-centric chapter, with her dealing with the ghosts of her own past. hope you guys liked it, and im very sorry if my baby development timeline is complete bullshit. Im imagining JJ to be around 14-15months old and although I did do some brief research, I'm pretty sure babies that age aren't nearly as capable as I've made him out to be :p xo

**Author's Note:**

> Come holler at me about this because I've only recently discovered the ship and I don't see it being discussed nearly enough. Also feel free to shout more ideas at me if you want this to be more than a one-shot. Love comments, as always! :) You can also find me on tumblr @allieebobo.


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